The real safety problem is the loose nut behind the wheel
You could ram every conceivable safety device (and a few currently inconceivable ones) into a car, and it won’t change the fact that someone out there will figure out how to get themselves killed in it. No matter how hard you work to idiot-proof something, the only thing you’ll really achieve is an improved idiot. I’m sure there’s someone out there who could figure out how to kill themselves in Knight Rider’s K.I.T.T. when the car was driving it for them.
As nice as all these wonderful safety items are, despite all they’ve achieved in terms of saving lives, they’ve also served to increase the road-going I.Q. (Idiot Quotient). Remember what Einstein said - “The only difference between genius and stupidity is that genium has limits.” Ron White added his own corollary to this - “You can’t fix stupid.”
Now, I’m not against adding safety features - I’ve been buckling my own seat belt since I was strong enough to overcome the spring in the retractors, and I never leave the driveway without it on. ABS, airbags, TMPS, stability control, they’re all very clever and nice to have, but does that mean I think every car should be forced to include an electronic nanny?
You know, it used to be that folks actually knew how to drive, and could actually get around in bad weather in a rear-wheel-drive vehicle with little to no weight on the back end (like the 1978 Farimont wagon my mom had years ago - it fishtailed going in a straight line down a dirt road in the middle of summer). We didn’t NEED four wheel drive, front wheel drive, fancy traction control systems, or any of that. As my father used to say, just because you can GO in the snow, doesn’t mean you can STOP. Sadly, too many people are too stupid or oblivious to realize/remember this.
The two main problems these days are:
1. Driver education in the U.S. is a joke (I’d be willing to bet that anyone who actually took the time to read the owner’s manual for their car and pay attention to the signs when riding in the car with their parents could pass the licensing test in most states without taking any of the courses). Also, graduated licenses for teenagers don’t seem to be doing much except generating repeat business for the DMVs every time the kids change to a different license level. Why can’t the behind-the-wheel training and test be like the Bridgestone Ice Driving School and the Skip Barber Racing School? At least people would know how to handle their cars in bad weather.
I spent an entire quarter year in driver’s ed, and I could have just read the driver’s manual, cut class, and still passed the test. I also fervently disagree with the idea that a kid with a learner’s permit should be prevented from driving at night - rather, I think they be REQUIRED to take some of their behind-the-wheel training after dark. The first place I ever drove myself after getting my license was to an evening Jazz Band rehearsal in High School (rural area where it actually gets DARK at night), and let me tell you, it’s a whole different ballgame when you’re depending on those two bulbs on the front end of the car to see by instead of the big one in the sky.
2. The other big problem is people not staying off the roads when the weather is too bad to drive in, and that’s because their employers refuse to close. Where I work, they never close for engineering folks (like me). There have even been times when the state has been hit with a snowstorm severe enough to declare a state of emergency and a travel ban (meaning if they catch you on the roads, it’s an arrestable offense). The last time that happened, 50 people drove to work at my company. When coroporate policy is that “we don’t close. If you are not comfortable on the roads, you can stay home but it comes out of your vacation time”, people feel pressured to go in anyway, and then you get roads clogged not only with the weather, but people who can’t handle the conditions but are out there anyway, and the result is chaos.
I’m also not against adding safety features. I’m particularly fond of dual master cylinder systems. Never noticed until a particularly nasty day driving in heavy snow on a steep hill when one half of the master cylinder failed on my ‘67 Sport Fury and the other side held enough for me to get the car stopped. But it still required some serious driving skill on my part to avoid an accident which I did successfully steer clear of. Yet, the safety feature was only as good as my skill in using it.
Most of my driving life has been spent driving rear wheel iron from 1967-1980 and as long as I had a good set of tires and showed some basic sense about road conditions I rarely had a problem. I didn’t have ABS, traction control or any of that stuff and I did fine. I still don’t have any of that along with millions of other people.
I agree that driver’s ed is a joke and has been as long as I can remember and I started driving in 1979. The school budget kept getting cut with the results you’d expect from gutting something like driver’s ed.
Driving in bad weather: I lived in Lexington,Ky for 21 years and the first thing I learned and quickly is that people will not stay off of seriously bad roads in the winter time. There seems to be this need to be able to tell war stories about how they were “caught out in the storm” when you know it wasn’t true about why they were out in the mess. Then there are employers like mine who make us come in even when the roads are dangerous.
People with four wheel or all wheel drive were the worst. You’d see them stuck in the median on New Circle Road or stuck in places like the exit from New Circle onto Harrodsburg Road. They’d drive too fast for the conditions thinking their 4WD made them invincible. Fortunately, in later years, their airbags saved them.
As far as the blogger’s first two paragraphs are concerned, I could not agree more. In my opinion for whatever that’s worth if anything, I think safety features have reached their useful limit in the face of very inadequate driver education. I’m sick of encountering people multi-tasking in their vehicles, especially the texters. I hope I never meet any of these people again on a snowy icy road!
For driving education, in Quebec its even worse (and as the worse shape of the roads wasn’t enough). We became a bit too reliant on electronic devices and as a old tv ad said about alcohol consomption: “moderation is a better taste”.
I wonder if we have to even learn driving education right from elementairy school? At least some pedestrians rights things to do and to not do. Maybe we should review some old educationnal movies like “The talking car” http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4450815203286280588&ei=FAqZSLa5EYTSrALNxsU5&q=the+talking+car&hl=fr
My drivers test was just sad…dawdling along at 25 mph through a closed course with stop signs and such and parallel parking. Then they send you out on one of the most dangerous roads in the state! The roads are reconfigured now, but 22 years ago I went right out on Route 1 with my brand new license.
Fortunately I - mostly - recongnized I was inexperienced and it had been drilled into my by my dad that cars could be very dangerous - and to constantly be aware of other cars because any one of them could turn out to be an idiot.
And that little nugget of advice is what has saved my bacon more than anything else. I always play the “what’s the dumbest thing that driver could do” game, and now with so many more disctrations easily available it’s even more important. 22 years ago all we had to contend with were newspapers, portable shavers, makeup artists, radio fiddlers…
It’s easy to just lump all the idiots as cell phone abusers but….it’s true! Just last week someone moved over into the lane next to mine regardless of the fact it was already occupied. Brakes were jammed, horns were blown….and the cause of it all exhibited zero recognition anything at all had happened. As I passed they were still on the (hand held) cellphone, paying (obviously) more attention to the GPS than the vehicles around them.
I have gotten to the point that if possible I choose my route based on my perceived percentages of encountering idiots. Some intersections and stretches of roadway just require a larger amount of attention than I believe too few people are capable of providing, so, as an extreme extension of the ‘best way to survive an accident is not to have one’ I just go another way, or use another lane that is potentially less chaotic.