Starting this week, the fine citizens of Quebec will be required to take 24 hours of theory and 15 hours of practical driving instruction before getting their driver’s licenses. According to CTV, the provincial government has capped the expense of courses at $825 in order to prevent the cost from becoming too onerous of a burden on new licensees. Still, even in Canadian dollars that’s no chump change. And as instinctive as it is for me to resist this kind of regulation of personal mobility, mandatory driving instruction is common in much of the developing world (i.e. Europe). Moreover, the next time I’m on the interstate having an aneurysm over rampant on-road incompetence (let alone lane etiquette), I’ll approach the idea with a lot less libertarian zeal. Still, unless Ray LaHood (or Oprah?) gets more traction in the War on Distracted Driving, I don’t see the idea catching on in the US. Especially at the prices that Quebec is talking about. Do you think mandatory driver education is a reasonable option in these car-crazed United States?
I think what would be more effective is to force drivers to watch those Australian road safety adverts. They will show in 30 seconds the utter horror a bad driver or a driver who lacks concentration can wreak.
True. You could watch some selected videos just prior to taking the driver’s test.
Freedom-loving Americans hate being dictated to regarding their cars. Insurance companies already offer discounts to new drivers who have received driver’s ed, and Americans respond well to financial incentives.
Maybe we could learn from our European friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MPRmOUxRMY Don’t bail out of your car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGTRysqNSFs Know whether your car is front- or rear-drive.
Oh my! What a lovely advertisement for the Sears/K-Mart Driving School … “Blue Light Special” anyone?
Now seriously, if an 825 USD training course helps a driver avoid a charge such as: TicketCost+CourtCosts+Driver’sResponsibilityFee(insomestatesimposedseveraltimesoverseveralyears)+InsuranceSurcharges(inmoststatesimposedcontinuouslyoverseveralyears)+IncreasedLicense Fee+etcetcetc), then it seems like a good investment.
If it also helps drivers to be more orderly, courteous and safe, that is a bonus too!
Mandatory instruction courses are irrelevant, what is required are stricter testing standards. My California test comprised of 50 multi-choice questions, of which at least 30 could be guessed by anyone with even the slightest intelligence, and a 20 minute drive where all you had to do was keep below 25mph. All maneuvers were performed on a private DMV road with no other traffic and most of those were abandoned because there were ducks in the way. I cannot see how anybody could fail this test no matter how much or little instruction they received.
Driving in Montreal makes me fear for my life; they make Mexico City drivers look disciplined. (Not a total exaggeration.)
I once had to do a crash deconstruction (not reconstruction) project (to minimize our legal liability), to find want sequence of control factors lead to severe injury or death. “Good” quality (not just cursory) driver training was routinely found to make a huge difference, especially in early years of expreience.
“Still, even in Canadian dollars that’s no chump change.”
The C$ is worth 97¢ relative to the US$.
Wait, wait, wait. Which states don’t require mandatory drivers education? I grew up in Ohio, so this a strange concept to me. Does somebody have a link?
No safe-driving discount in CT :( Also, no learners permits for adults :o
When in NY, I took mine every 3 years to keep the discount. Each time, I did learn something new, so it wasn’t wasted.
Deeper discounts would probably be the best bet.
Seriously you think this is extreme? I don’t think it goes far enough. Finland has the best idea when it comes to teaching people to drive. One section of learning to drive is taught on a skid pan – and you have to pass it. If you need any proof about the quality of drivers this small country produces, just look at the number of Finns in professional motorsports.
Put it like this, once licensed you are driving around in a 1-3 ton metal box that can crush, kill, maim and injure other people if not controlled correctly. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right.
Are we talking re-education, as in continuing education? Because I don’t know anyone who didn’t have to take Drivers Ed before getting their license.
Driving is not a privilege. If it were, licenses could be denied for arbitrary and capricious reasons. It’s a limited right – just as all other rights are limited. The limits have to do with public safety (well, you know, theoretically). If you can pass the eye test, the written test, and the road test, there is no basis for denial.
We definitely do not need more in the way of car handling skills (e.g. skidpad testing and the like) what we need (if we could figure out how) is better self handling skills. Accidents are caused, primarily, by people who cannot handle themselves well. It’s not the amount of time you spent on the skidpad that matters, but rather the amount of time you spent at the bar before driving home.
It’s not the ability to recover from running off the road that matters so much as the ability to slow down, pay attention, and not run off the road in the first place. It’s not the ability to do a controlled panic stop so much as the ability to stay more than a half a car length behind me at 70.
It’s self skills that people need, not car skills.
Haven’t we gone through this? Several times? Driver education, beyond “This is what a stop sign looks like” really doesn’t help.
Some people are just not good at assessing risk, and we really only have two ways we can deal with that:
* Get the riskier groups (and this means males under 25 and anyone who drinks) off the road.
* Enforce traffic laws with an iron hand, not via the inconsistent “blitz” methods we do now.
The problem isn’t that people aren’t technically skilled enough or aware of the rules of the road, it’s that they’re inherently bad about judging risk. You’re not going to be able to teach risk assessment, and you’d be wasting money trying. Using Europe as an example is a logical error of correlation versus causation: there are cultural factors that see Scandinavians and Germans behave in a less risky manner, and those factors will take decades to duplicate, and the mandatory driving instruction is a result of those cultural factors.
Calling for more instruction appeals to the arrogance of the enthusiast, but it just doesn’t bear out in reality.
Good judgment is only half the battle. While it is probably true that you can’t teach risk assessment, the best judgement in the world isn’t going to help you when something unexpected (and probably entirely out of your control) happens on the road.
Most states require some sort of training to own a gun and while my numbers might be off I believe more people in this country die in auto accidents annually than die from gunshot wounds. Wouldn’t a little more stringent training make sense? I know, I know, there is this study. Here’s the link…
While it is probably true that you can’t teach risk assessment, the best judgement in the world isn’t going to help you when something unexpected (and probably entirely out of your control) happens on the road.
True, but most accidents aren’t caused by a lack of technical skill; they’re caused by risky behaviour.
Okay, I’ll cede that point since I don’t have any data in front of me. However, I would argue that poor risk management is as much based on ignorance as it is on wanton disregard. You can’t make someone who wants to drive like a jackass not drive like a jackass, but you also cannot expect someone to effectively manage a risk they don’t understand or even recognize.
You can’t make someone who wants to drive like a jackass not drive like a jackass, but you also cannot expect someone to effectively manage a risk they don’t understand or even recognize.
I’ll agree with that, too, but every time this discussion has come up on TTAC in the past the results have been more or less the same: we all “feel” that it would be in everyone’s best interest to become better at assessing risk, but actually doing so doesn’t really seem to help much: it just enables riskier drivers to be that much more cocky. There’s a very, very small portion of the driving public who will really benefit from training.
If we really want to address the problem, we need to get these drivers out of their cars, either:
* If they’re young, we keep them on a strict leash, or raise the driving age to 25. There’s reasons why young people are bad at risk assessment, and it has to do with prefrontal cortex development not completing until about 25 years of age.
* If they’re older, we take their car away. Not, not their license, their car.
* We put in more technology that stops accidents form happening (ESC/Stability control, PreSafe, blind-spot radar)
Where I disagree with you is in the percentage of people who would benefit from better driver training. Your solutions address the jackass drivers for whom any driver training is a waste (I probably fell into that group when I got my license), but not, what to me, is the bigger problem of woefully inadequate practical driver training. It is way too easy to get a licence in this country and we put people out on the road without understanding the implications of what they are doing. That isn’t jackassery; that is the net effect of the “driving is a right” philosophy.
Your solutions address the jackass drivers for whom any driver training is a waste (I probably fell into that group when I got my license), but not, what to me, is the bigger problem of woefully inadequate practical driver training.
You are incorrect about training being the bigger problem.
The bulk of the problem on the road is jackasses, not untrained drivers. Insurance tables bear this out: the drivers who cost the insurers the most money, and pay the most asounding premiums, are young men, persistent drunks, and speeders with convictions.
Comparatively, trained drivers get very little breaks from the insurers. That’s because training doesn’t save them as much money as your being older and having a clean record does. If it did, you could be sure the insurers would incentivize it.
I’m with Sinistermisterman on this one. The U.S. doesn’t go far enough in training to get a license. The driver’s ed in high school is next to worthless, and the courses by the “private” firms isn’t much better. When my kids were coming up, I took matters into my own hands, having gotten a SCCA competition license many years ago. It must have been effective, because my daughter wiped the field at a driving session sponsored by the local BMW club not long after obtaining her license. It was an all day affair with wet/dry skid-pad, slalom (also wet and dry), and avoidance maneuvers. She was in a lowly ’98 Sunfire against the “daddy’s boys” in their 325s, 530s, and such. I stayed to watch just for fun, and after the first outing, which was the wet skid-pad, her instructor came up to me and asked just what training had she had? I asked why the question, and he said that of all the students he had ridden with, she was one of less than a handful that knew how to recover the car when he unexpectedly yanked up on the e-brake when she was circling the wet skid-pad. I said I hand taken her out on icy parking lots and trained her how to handle the car in those types of situations. The instructor said he wished more parents took that kind of interest in their kids driving skills. She definitely opened a bunch of eyes at that driving session when she had the best overall scores. In fact, in the 8 years since we did that, she has remarked how the instruction I gave her has saved her bacon more times than she could count.
So, I am all in favor of strict training regardless of cost. 10 Benjamins for a course is still not that bad compared to what the insurance costs for a young kid anyway!!!
” I said I hand taken her out on icy parking lots and trained her how to handle the car in those types of situations. ”
When my friends and I were 17, we would go to empty snowed in parking lots or frozen water (I’m up north of course) and practice recoveries by throwing the car into skids and spinning scenarios. When my daughter starts to drive, dad’s going to pull the handbrake on her too over several winter evenings. ;-)
I live at the end of a long gravel driveway and my boys get the random e-brake from me every once in a while. If it snowed here more often we’d just get even more skid-recovery practice!
Kudos to both you and your daughter. It’s admirable. Really.
However, the real test isn’t her ability to recover when you yank on the e-brake. The real test is her ability to not stop after work and have 3 cocktails then drive home, not follow too close to the car in front, not go too fast for weather/traffic conditions, etc.
My 78 year old mother is as good a driver as your daughter – for all practical purposes. Mom couldn’t recover if you pullled the e-brake (not that she drives the kind of cars where you can reach over and pull the e-brake) but she’s never had an accident. She won’t be driving much longer due to age, but she’s racked up 60 years of accident free driving. Let’s see if your daughter can rack up 60 years of accident free driving.
If your daughter ever does have an accident (God forbid) it probably will have nothing at all to do with her superior skidpad performance.
I agree that a real “driving” class should be mandatory, along with accident avoidance and education on distracted driving. I sent my kid’s to the Honda sponsored, defensive driving class at Mid-Ohio and it was an eye opener. I dare say I would have avoided half the accidents I was in, as a youth, if I had similar training. The $400 or so dollars for the one day course was a bargain if it avoids even one accident.
http://www.midohio.com/School/Courses/Defensive-Driving
By the way, I liked how the instructors talked about the dangers of distracted driving but I wish that part of the course had gone further…maybe with a field exercise. People don’t realize how far they travel in those few milliseconds that they take their eyes off the road ahead. At 70mph you are traveling over 100 feet per second. Now include brain reaction time which I’ve seen numbers quoted from .7-2 seconds….that is another 200 feet. Finally add a braking distance of 200 feet and you are talking about a distance longer than a football field to stop. You can see how easy it is to get in trouble.
http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/garage/stopmph.htm
For some reason I read the headline first as “Mandatory Driver Execution?”
I’m all for it.
The nations with the best drivers combine training and enforcement. I’m all for training new drivers to a point. What young drivers really need is experience and a (Singapore-grade) fine/jailing when they screw up.
In the US, the problem with effective enforcement (of the Finn or Germanic variety) is that you’d have to revoke the licenses of 5 percent of the population. Of course, then you’d have to budget to jail & imprison many of them (since they’re likely to drive without a license). And the elephant in the room: a degenerate tax collection culture in many police departments regarding traffic enforcement…
My understanding is that, since there are no transportation alternatives outside of 10 or so large cities, almost everybody in the U.S. who has a license revoked or suspended continues to drive anyway.
True. That’s why jail should be in the picture.
But I doubt it’ll happen. Americans accept a jumbo jet+ of automotive death and mayhem on a weekly basis. What’s horrible is the stats on teens.
Note the story about an 18 year old with two suspensions and numerous violations but was cleared to drive under NY law. He died with three others:
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/northernsuburbs/story/849628.html
While the story is sad, the followup stories contain nothing but calls to ‘improve the roads’ or ‘sue the parents’. Nothing about stricter laws or enforcement. Would it really have been that bad for that kid to spend a few weekends in jail?
In Pennsylvania, our jails are already overcrowded; I doubt that people want to parole burglars and rapists to make room for someone who prefers to drive 80 mph in the 65 mph zone. Can’t imagine that it’s different in other states.
The number of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles driven is already at a record low, and keeps dropping. Our roads are safe, and getting safer every year. Granted, safer vehicles and better road design play a large part in that fortunate trend, but the idea that our roads are a mobile slaughterhouse is not accurate.
The local paper runs regular reports on fatal accidents. Most fatalities are the result of two things: a drunk driver (who usually also kills him- or herself) or a failure to wear safety belts. So I can’t hop on the bandwagon of throwing someone in jail just because he or she likes to drive 85 mph on the Pennsylvania Turpike (which has a ridiculously low speed limit of 65 mph – is anyone really clueless enough to believe that exceeding this limit is dangerous?). This, of course, is what would ultimately happen under a scheme to jail “dangerous” drivers. But these people aren’t the problem.
@ geeber:
So I can’t hop on the bandwagon of throwing someone in jail just because he or she likes to drive 85 mph on the Pennsylvania Turpike (which has a ridiculously low speed limit of 65 mph – is anyone really clueless enough to believe that exceeding this limit is dangerous?).
Nice stretch, but I probably should have clarified. For the record, I’d reserve jail for those driving with a suspended or no license.
In this case, it’s unclear whether the deceased driver would have been so affected. But at 18 with two suspensions, wtf was he doing with a license???
Driver’s ed could positively affect vehicular traffic, my least favorite social activity. Teach not only vehicular dynamic control skills, but also establish some etiquette.
As far as government effecting this, forget it here in the USA. Some fraction of our population will scream Communist Fascism! , and label it as undue government intervention into our personal lives and pocketbooks. Am I too cynical?
+2 on Finnish driving school.
Teaching student drivers how to drive in risky situations and how to recognize them goes a long way to reducing risky behavior.
Of course, one has to mention the Darwinian angle of Finnish roads. If you’re a dumb driver there, you aren’t going to last very long.
Maybe the driver’s test should consist of completing a slalom on an icy causeway over a freezing-cold lake? If you don’t pass, your family pays for the car (up to them whether they fish you out or not).
I think a little education in courtesy, in paying attention to whether you’re blocking the drivers behind you as well as those in front or to the side, in staying in the right lane would go a long way to smooth the flow of traffic, reducing frustration, and therefore reducing accidents.
Just don’t let anyone get their license until they have 5 years of licensed driving experience.
I remember seeing job postings like that. “Must have ten years Java programming experience” in 2000.
I think I’m at that job now :o
Praising the Finnish system seems strange, as Finns are in general poor drivers who break traffic regulations all the time, speed, overtake in zero visibility, drive bumper to bumper on icy roads and crash at first snowfall. 20 theory lessons, 13 hours of driving in traffic, skid pad, night driving and mandatory refresher course – mostly useless.
Traffic kills yearly 65 per million people in Finland, but only 40 in Sweden and Great Britain. Britain has less snow, of course, but Sweden has as terrible weather as us. Of course our ridiculous car taxation system forces us to drive small, old cars, but I doubt it’s the main cause.
I think in Canada we should have mandatory Winter driving education followed by test. As many people come to live here from places where they have never seen snow, let alone driven in it. It seems as soon as we have just a bit of dusting of light snow, our roads and expressways are getting clogged with crashes (I refuse to call it accidents) and cars in a ditch and guard rail. And while you’re at it, make that winter licensing test to be done on a vehicle with standard transmission. After everyone who failed are off the roads, maybe insurance premiums will be a lot less then today.
On car insurance subject, a bit of topic. It’s like a conspiracy, unless you’re buying a gas guzzler, they’ll come up with any excuse for one not to have a practical car (such as hatchback). And then automakers complain that nobody is buying hatchbacks in North America. I was looking at Focus ZX3, but insurance is only $10 less per month them a Mustang GT of the same vintage! I guess ZX3 is a ‘sports car’ with all of 110hp! Funny part is that if one would get BMWX5 4.4-liter V8 (that costs five times the price of Focus of the same vintage) you would pay a lot less.
It seems as soon as we have just a bit of dusting of light snow, our roads and expressways are getting clogged with crashes (I refuse to call it accidents) and cars in a ditch and guard rail.
And this is why winter driving training (or any driver training) won’t work. Even if you train people, they’ll slip back into bad habits as soon as the snow stays away for a while. People are creatures of habit, even if those habits are bad.
Again:
* License at 25
* Take away people’s cars as punishment for demonstrably, repeatedly unsafe driving
* Mandate stuff like ESC and PreSafe that prevent accidents in the first place.
Again:
* License at 25
* Take away people’s cars as punishment for demonstrably, repeatedly unsafe driving
* Mandate stuff like ESC and PreSafe that prevent accidents in the first place.
____
Honestly, if this is the only way to make the roads a safer place, then I think I would rather keep things the way they are.
* License at 25 – not even faintly realistic. Replace with requirement for a logged 50 hours of driving before taking the driving test. Sure, some people will help their kid fabricate the log book, but many more will buy into it. It’s what I did with my kids.
* Take away people’s cars as punishment for demonstrably, repeatedly unsafe driving – +1, there are so many people driving on suspended/revoked licenses that this is necessary. Make it so that anyone who loans the person another car also at least runs the risk of losing said loaner for the period of the suspension/revocation. I don’t believe in absolute forfeiture.
* Mandate stuff like ESC and PreSafe that prevent accidents in the first place. – Aren’t we headed here – how many US market cars don’t have a combined ABS/ESC system? (Serious question/no snark)
* Expensive test fee to cover the cost of testing accident avoidance skills by well compensated instructors who know what they’re doing. A significant test fee will be a reality check for parents to assess their kids true readiness. The instructors need to be supported with a rule that there is no social promotion, unlike our fine schools.
The whole problem is road rage. Drivers need to mellow out. Mandatory medication for everyone!
OK, seriously, here’s the thing: in this country driving is so important, in so many ways, that it is politically impossible to institute strict AND effective restrictions on the privilege of operating a motor vehicle. The huge number of uninsured (and often unlicensed) drivers is evidence of that. No state has the will to effectively rid the roads of those illegal motorists.
No state has the will to effectively rid the roads of those illegal motorists.
+1. Sadly, that’s probably more true in redder parts of the USA. Bubba-nation must drive.
@ihatetrees
Sadly its just as much in the blue states with undocumented immigrants on the road, unlicensed and in uninsured cars as it is in the red states with Bubba-nation.
An all encompassing one time test that only has 15 hours of practical driving instruction and that does not take into account the persons ability to execute certain manuvers under high stress/unexpected situations will not ‘make’ a person a better driver. I would doubt it would do anything except line some pockets. Just my opinion! Feel free to respond!
Holy traffic wreck, Batman, what a subject. I am all for drivers education in order to get a lisence. When I went to get my lisence in 1966 it was mandatory to take drivers educaton. The requirement was dropped a few years later because the schools could no longer afford it. After all,football, basketball, etc were more important.
The problem today in the good old USA is that driving is a right and not a privledge. I know people with several accidents, DWI, etc who are allowed to drive because because our laws have so many loopholes in them that any half ass lawyer can get charges reduced or plead a hardship so that the bad driver can continue to be a bad driver. I currently have a large dent in the back of my truck from a suspended lisence and no insurance driver. When the police came all they did was issue him a citation. He then got in his car and drove away. Great laws…….
With two teen drivers, I have a unique (and unfortunate) perspective…
Mandatory and expensive drivers ed will put even more unqualified and unlicensed drivers on the road.
Having said that, we paid extra to send our kids to school owned and operated by retired LEO’s. Their perspective made a huge difference, plus they put the kids on the road behind the wheel for the legal amount of time. Many of the drivers education schools shortcut the driving time, some significantly so. MI has a 50 hr behind the wheel with a parent requirement, and most parents do not track the time, and many will not even let their kids drive, feigning the excuse, the kid is a scary driver. Yea, that’s a good idea, let your kid kill somebody else down the road someday… One of my kids friends had three accidents in six months, and her parents never drove with her at all. I noticed, right around 35 hours of behind the wheel time, there was a remarkable shift to better skills. One other thing that made a huge difference, holding extremely high expectations, a stop sign means you stop… COMPLETELY. Speed limit is exactly that A LIMIT. Parking was another whole game, dozen times they had to center the car perfectly in the spot or repark the car. By perfectly, it had to be the same distance on each side within an inch, or do over. And, that meant we as parents had to follow ALL the rules ourselves. Our driving had the biggest impact on their driving skill development… hmm dad drove 5 over, that means I can too. Although, I did catch a lot of flack for parking the Daytona in the back of the lot across two parking places, LOL
My $0.02?…..
graduated licenses…..i.e., 1st 2 years of license, 100 hp car.
It is not just inexperience. It is inexperience multiplied by speed and power.
Also, children learn to drive by watching their parents. If you curse and swear and flip the bird to other drivers who offend your sense of decency and safety while driving aggressively while texting, eating and reading, chances are your kids will, too. OTOH, if you drive sensibly, prudently and defensively, turn the smartphone off and turn the other cheek, driving wise, your kid will do that.
Good driver education is deffinitely important, even though some people might slip back into their bad habits later on. Even better than raising the age level to 25 would be using a simple-yet-100%-reliable kinesiologic test. Checking this simple statement: ” this person can safely handle driving” and testing the person (the applicant) for kinesilogic response. If the person’s arm goes weak, it means the person is not congruent with the statement, thus he/she cannot safely handle driving = no licence, no car. Simple and completely reliable.
It’s not a privilege, no matter how many times that’s repeated in Driver’s Ed class.
A driver’s license is a privilege not a right. I would highly support a more intensive driving education for new drivers. This would include tests of the rules of the road, driving on the roads and most importantly a skills learning course of emergency maneuvers (skid pad to feel what a skid is [currently they only learn it by concept] and how to counter, emergency lane change, 3 second following rule, lifting your vision up to see ahead rather than driving looking only at the area just in front of the car, and emergency stops learning to properly set the brakes for full ABS stop)
I would also support regular re-education for all current drivers including testing drivers on new laws and enforcing certain laws that are commonly broken (such as texting, or using turn signals properly [3 seconds before you actual turn and not while you decide to do it], etc.).
“Germans behave in a less risky manner”
That may be true. However, it is definitely true that Germans drive faster than Americans. The fatality rate on their unlimited autobahns is comparable to the rate on American interstates. That suggests they are more competent than Americans. Over here, the knee jerk approach to safety is to slow down rather than learn how to control your car.
When a thousand drivers pass over a slick spot in the road without losing control, but the thousand and first, going the same speed, loops the car and parks it in the ditch, the problem lies with the one who lost control, not the rest who got through safely. Better training would help the thousand and first driver.
Better training would help the thousand and first driver.
By the numbers, the reason that 1001st driver went on an excursion is likely because he or she was driving carelessly (too fast, not paying attention), not because he/she was poorly trained.
Training wouldn’t really help that person because he/she is still going to be a risk-taking idiot. ESC, in this case, probably would.
An interesting topic that I saw just after I read this:
16yo + S-2000
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/01/2-killed-in-bensenville-crash.html
Supposedly these kids were “careful drivers”. Can anyone NOT blame the parents who probably gave them an S-2000?
Mark MacInnis makes several good points. Learning to drive a car is easy…learning to drive in all traffic/weather conditions is not. Giving your kid a Mustang or Corvette as their first car amplifies the consequences of mistakes made while ingraining the new experience of driving. People don’t learn to fly an F-14 when getting their pilots licence for a reason. In fact, learning to fly is a highly regulated education process with strict requirements that no one seems to mind, I suppose because we don’t all have flying cars.
I learned to drive from my Dad in a Datsun 510, which became my first car. He was an OK instructor and a safe driver (no accidents for 50+ years and counting) so I think I came out about average when I got my licence. However, for every SCCA dad teaching their kids uber-skills, there are dozens of boneheads who shouldn’t be driving THEMSELVES, passing these same ‘skills’ onto their children. The driving exam is the only hurdle these new drivers have to clear before joining the rest of us on the road, so rather than enforced education, I think the exam process should be made uniform and tough instead. People who get trained by those who know what they are doing, or are naturally skilled at driving (if there are such people) pass the test easily. People who fail by a small margin can try again in a month or two with some more practice. People who fail terribly…OK, they could be required to get expensive training before they can try again.
Has anyone watched ‘Canada’s Worst Driver’ series? This is an appalling indictment of the failure of the driving exam process in some parts of Canada. Some of them burst into tears and let go of the wheel when anything happens. Some actually brag about all the accidents they have had (including hit and runs…). Nearly all of them have no clue as to how the laws of phyics apply to a moving vehicle. And yet they all come to the show with a valid licence in hand…
I’m not sure mandatory education would be effective in America. The revenue generation system that our state and local government have put into place for traffic enforcement have reduced traffic tickets to an annoyance rather than an infraction that carried major penalties.
The primary problems we have are distractions, impolite drivers (slower than traffic flow in the left lane, etc) and rage. Enforcement should be designed to curb these habbits, not extract money from those that are driving at safe speeds that are higher than arbitrary limits or “gotchas”.
Here in Florida, a 15 yo can get a learner’s permit. They have to have 40 hours behind the wheel, 10 hours at night, over 1 year. That is an absurdly small amount of real world driving. I know that new drivers can be scary, but in my opini0n its practice, practice, practice. We know parents who drove with their children around the neighborhood occasionally over the permit year, barely getting to the 40 hours, then cut the newly licensed driver loose with a new car at 16. I have 2 older daughters who learned to drive by driving dad EVERYWHERE. My 15 yo son just got his permit, and in the past month he’s probably close to the 40 hours already. He’ll probably have 400 hours with his permit, all times of the day and night, before he can get his license. I don’t think more mandatory education is the answer; how many schools are going to put my son behind the wheel for 400 hours? However, a stricter license exam and much stricter renewal requirements could yield more safety for all of us.
Every day there are news reports about some “experienced” driver putting their car through a store front. I haven’t had to get behind the wheel of a car for the DMV since 1976, and have only had to have my picture retaken to renew my license over the past 33+ years. How do I even know if my driving skills are up to standards? The DMV should put me through a driving test, minimum, every 5 years.
Why should you be retested every 5 years? Has something really happened to your skills? Did your eyes go bad? Did you develop Parkinson’s ?
It’s a waste of time to retest mature drivers who are not yet elderly. Your reaction time is marginally slower than when you were a teen, but your maturity and common sense has increased to make up for it.
If you retest everyone every 5 years the accident rate will go down by how much? My guess, a fraction of 1%.
Israel has this system, and while it works, it’s not perfect either. I do think there should be a minimal amount of lessons every new driver has to take prior to taking his test, but they should be well focused and topic-oriented.
First off, your license clearly states whether or not you’re permitted to drive a manual or not. You can choose to do a manual license – and subject to a minimum of 28 40-minute long lessons, or do an automatic-only license (with fewer lessons required).
It’s not a bad idea. You get to learn the basics of legal, on-paper driving. The problem is that unlike Quebec, Israel doesn’t regulate these prices, so one 40 minute session could end up costing you about $30. Then you need to take a test, which costs more than $100, and unlike American driving tests – this one is tough.
The thing is that you don’t really learn how to drive until you’re out there, on the road, with no second set of pedals to save you or that student sign that lets everyone know who’s ahead of them. That’s how you should really be doing your driving, save from maybe a few introductory lessons.
The thing is that most people can’t face extreme situations. What happens when you get into a turn too quickly? Do you lock the steering wheel and scream? Do you hit the brakes? What’s understeer? How does the traction control and stability control systems help you? Most people simply do not know the answers, and this is what driver education should be focused about.
Driving lessons should cover the extremes; the situations most people won’t likely be involved at on a regular basis. Take them to a closed, wet track. Show them how it feels to understeer or oversteer, and show them how you stay out of it and escape it alive. Let them do an emergency braking procedure. Most people don’t take advanced driving classes because they think it’s for “race drivers”, and that is simply wrong. Plus, knowing how it feels to slide uncontrollably can psychologically help people avoid getting into these situations in the first place.
It’s not a question of a minimal quota of lessons or even the price – the important question is what they teach.
I am very sorry but there is no way I will ever subscribe to the ‘driving training does not matter school of thought’. I wonder whether the proponents of this would be perfectly happy to use untrained pilots on commercial flights as well – it’s not the skills that matter, yo see, it’s the maturity.
Do not get me wrong, maturity does play a role in it, as does accumulated experience – and here the earlier the start te better. I posted a link to a study in the last discussion – will mention it here again (it is for motorcycles not cars but the same principle holds) – the optimal age for starting training is not 25, it is 6. In fact the study’s conclusion is that starting over the age of 28 is inherently dangerous, irrespective of the mental maturity of the rider.
Going back to cars and driver training, I am not sure to what extent you have experienced such but it is not only about going around the course as quickly as possible, not even primarily so. It is about judging your speed relative to circumstances, demonstrating practically how overconfident most people are (about distance, speed, sheer distractedness), teaching you to concentrate on the road and not on texting, phoning or other stuff. The main skills you are taught are about avoiding dangerous situations, knowing how to react in them to get out of them in one piece is valuable but only as a secondary objective.
I also know many drivers who as people are extremely mature but will continue doing stupid things in cars for the simple reason that they lack experience, a knowledge of physics (and an intuition about it), all things that in those people would be very easily corrected with some driver training. I am not talking about people who derive any pleasure from speeding but people who will not know how to account for weather, road conditions and the like, which no amount of maturity (unsupported) will prepare you for.
I did my licence with a lorry and the first requirement, day one, before they show you a theory book or in fact the lorry, was to pass a phychological aptitude test. You do not pass, you are not allowed to even try, for the simple reason that you do not have the right mindset to drive safely. Apparently the only reason this was not in place for car drivers is that too many would fail. And that is not only true for 18 year olds but equally for 30, 40, 50 and 80 year olds. I can see how something such, in spite of all its benefits will never be introduced – in effect the ship has sailed for it. Had it been put into effect in the 30s and driving never become the right as it is seen today, an alternative structure would evolve to take this into account, as it is, I understand that revoking 2/3 of all licences would be problematic and cause some hardship.
I very much applaud all of you who take your kids and actually force them to spend the required time behind the wheel under tutelage (again I agree that this only works if the parent in charge is any good at what they do and suitably mature) – it is one of the things that works. I benefited from such an approach as well – after I got my licence (back home there is no driving on public roads outside of a dual control car with a qualified instructor before you pass your test) I also spent about a year (35k miles or so at least) being the personal chauffeur of my dad, who would, as my skills progressed teach me additional stuff. My first car then came with 240hp (which was a lot for the time) but my driving behaviour was still much less risky than that of any of my friends who had cars with 60-100hp. Blanket generalisations on the power of the car will not really work either.
As for regular retesting at 5 year intervals, I am also very much in favour of it. The purpose is to ensure that bad habits did not creep up and if they did, to mandate additional education (or licence limits) to erradicate them.
However all of this is probably completely moot, as noone wants their bubble about how they are an ‘oh so good driver with 40 years of driving to the store next door without accidents’ burst and the fact that people die quite frequently as a result is less of an issue, especially since it is not especially salient in every day life. Well, it’s not for those without a proper driver education, who really cannot appreciate the risks at all (shock videos will have a very limited effect, or rather the effect will last a short time – actually losing control of a car in a controlled environment will have a much more lasting impact, especially if one is then made to understand why it occured and how to prevent getting into such a situation again).
DO they lose their license for…
Not using turn signals
Driving a 4×4 / awd / 4wd vehicle.. with street all season tires?
Driving a current vehicle with DRLs without the ability to actually figure out / be taught WHAT DRLs actually mean.. and how to use / turn on lights?
Being able to drive the vehicle first.. without ANY distractions
I can go on..