This Sub-topic is for discussing the article listed above, which can be read here. Please add your thoughts and reactions to the article.

Having just read Mr Magwood's article, there are a few issues
that should be added to our current state of driving in southern
Ontario.

Mr. Magwood's article seems to stress the importance of driver
education, skills, and that the "worst drivers" can be found anywhere
on the planet. Agreed. But something that can't be tested or
measured, unlike driving skills, is whether or not people actually
WANT to drive well.

I have travelled and driven throughout North America. I can say
without hesistation the worst drivers are right here in Toronto. I
can travel anywhere in the U.S. without seeing the kinds of outright,
pre-meditated idiocy (I see) on our Ontario roads. I will tell you WHY.

Some people simply do not belong behind the wheel of a car. Period.
They have no business being there, like some people have no business
swimming in the ocean or like some people have no business giving
investment advice.  The problem these groups of drivers cause is the
responsibility of our government.

In ontario, it seems, driving is a right not a priviledge. These are
not the drivers I am describing. I believe 80% of us KNOW how to
drive well. A greater "problem" that needs to be addressed is not
so much driver skill, it is WHY NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE ABOUT DRIVING
WELL IN ONTARIO.

Respect not for cars or drivers, but "driving" itself is not present
in southern ontario. Ask any British or German cabbie about driving
and you will start to understand the real difference about driving as
a priviledge vs. a right.

And how about our friends to the south? Why is my experience of
driving in the U.S. always a pain-free, pleasant trip where drirvers
seem to respect each other more, yield right of way and pass only on
the passing lane? I will tell you why. Guns. Your propensity to
get shot in the U.S will always be higher than in Canada. So if you
dont respect driving itself, like Europeans do, then in the U.S. you
just might get shot. Sounds extreme? Considering the amount of
deaths caused by car "accidents" themselves, driving with the notion
that somebody could just shoot you because you've cut somebody off
while talking on the phone with ice cream on your face is actually a
proactive preventive measure. Think about it, or do the math. It
doesnt matter which approach you choose.

So after all, Mr. Magwood is right. Education is key. But education
on driver skills is the easy part. Education on driving itself is a
greater challenge I dare you to tackle. Responsibility lies in
government passing drivers that have no business behind a wheel of a
car and not passing laws like banning use of cell phones as New York
State has recently done. Responsibility also lies in North American
auto manufactuers that continue this home trend of cars with cup
holders, navigation systems, and televisions; and responsibility also
lies in driver educators not just emphasizing the importance of
driver skills, but the mentality that is required to get behind a
wheel and actually apply those skills.

See you at Tim Hortons.

Gary Magwood’s article raises two issues. One is, if so many of us are bad drivers, why doesn’t ‘the government’ do something about it? The second is that we are not trained to avoid making mistakes, so we keep making them and have crashes.

There are two parts to the first question. I would say that in highly motorised societies like Canada, the USA and Australia, the ability to drive a car is regarded as a right, and any government that proposes making it harder faces enormous opposition.

In passing, there is also a social justice issue: measures to make it harder to get a licence and be allowed to drive have more impact on the economically and socially disadvantaged. That these are the groups that some evidence suggests have more than their fair share of crashes and violations puts society between a rock and a hard place.

The second part of the ‘why don’t governments’ question is that fundamentally you can have the amount of road safety that you are prepared to pay for. In some respects that is a basic, budgetary, choose between more road safety and hospitals or schools question. But that is not all of it: one of the things that society would have to buy for improved safety is significantly greater supervision and control of activities and behaviour. If I can blow Australia’s trumpet, it has taken the USA at least a very long time to get to at least halfway reasonable seat belt wearing rates, and that only in the front seat, for precisely this reason. There is vastly more that could be done through regulation and enforcement as well as through technology if society was prepared to wear the cost.

So these are basic social questions rather than mere driving ability questions.

The second major issue is whether or not we are trained to avoid making mistakes. Well, we are and we aren’t. We operate in an infinitely variable and dynamic system of road environment, weather and light conditions, and other traffic. When we learn to drive we develop cognitive skills to enable us to operate in that system. We learn to observe and interpret what is in our environment, and exercise anticipation and judgement. Furthermore we develop the capacity to do that virtually without conscious thought (there is so much information coming in to be processed and acted upon that we simply could not operate without largely automatic responses). In reality I think most do remarkably well, considering the complexity of the task.

It seems to me that the big problem is not what we can or cannot do (putting aside for the moment the nasty question of trying to enhance driving skills) but what we choose to do. Other recent contributors to drivers.com (eg Larry Lonero, Hirsch, Dan Mayhew) have discussed this subject at length. Human error, including misperception of risk, is said to play a part in up to 95% of crashes. Australian research found that inattention and failure to anticipate, among other things, were characteristic of young driver crashes.

More crashes result from simple error, or distraction, or failure to anticipate than are brought about by skill failures. If we take a cold, hard look at our own experience it becomes evident that the situations that absolutely take us by surprise and that we could not possibly have anticipated are really very rare indeed. To be even more provocative, if we were to pay attention to the task in hand and look and think ahead, the need for ‘advanced’ or crash avoidance skills would almost never arise.

All this is without even considering motivation matters: the risk-taking propensity of the young; running late; angry or frustrated; distracted or preoccupied; using a cell phone, and so on.

I don’t agree that when we learn to drive we are not taught to ‘see’. Use of mirrors, a shoulder check before changing lanes, observing the environment to anticipate what might appear are all part of any half-way decent driving curriculum. This is not to deny that some do it better than others, and perhaps there are some who are genuinely incompetent.

The problem is more one of motivation where we fail to consider the driving as a task in itself, rather than just an interval between being here and getting there. We apply conscious thought and judgement and foresight in many other skilled tasks so we can do them well and avoid errors, and so we should in driving.

Getting that right will do far more than trying to weed out the so-called unfit, or to teach emergency avoidance procedures.

I am in the process of researching driver training and safety in the USA and in order to qualify myself for the comments that follow, I believe it is important that I give you a little bit of my background. I spent fourteen years in the police in England and most of this time was spent as a traffic patrol officer. Some of you may know that in Britain and in a few other countries – regrettably few, in fact – the traffic police receive extensive advanced driver training. In many countries, though, the so-called training for police drivers amounts to nothing more than perhaps an additional week, or even just a day or two.

Had I been completely trained by the police in England (i.e. right through from being unable to drive, up to the ‘advanced’ level both in cars and on motorcycles) I would have undergone six hundred and eighty hours of driver/rider training. As it was, I already (in my mind, at least) “knew” how to drive a car and ride a motorbike and had passed the relevant normal tests when I joined the force, so – as it turned out – I only had to have a total of four hundred hours of police training to get me through ‘Standard B, Car’ (the intermediate course), ‘Advanced Motorcycle’, and ‘Advanced Car’. The reason I am telling you this is fundamental to the issue under discussion and that is this: Even by the end of the four-week, intermediate driving course, I was utterly stunned by how little I had truly known previously about driving. And therein lies the problem: Human nature being what it is, most people who have passed their test – the only commonly available measuring stick by which their skill as a driver may be judged – assume or come to believe that they are genuinely a “good” driver. I certainly did, and until I was given full training I had no way of knowing better. The almost universally held belief is that only other drivers are bad, never the person discussing the subject. Gary Magwood, in his article “Let’s Talk Driving”, summed this situation up very accurately when he stated that “…we all make mistakes because we never learned how not to.”

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ken Smith’s response to Gary’s article. I was in complete agreement with much of what Ken said and will take the liberty of re-iterating a couple of his points. There were, however, one or two of Ken’s opinions with which I would beg to differ somewhat – see below.

I again agree entirely with Gary when he says he is “…fascinated by the myths, misinformation, and a lack of genuine knowledge about a subject that so dramatically affects our lives…” though I would be sorely tempted to replace the word ‘fascinated’ with ‘frustrated’.

In his reply to the article, Ken points out that extensive research has shown that human error plays a part in [about] 95% of all crashes. I am presuming that his research/knowledge of the situation in Australia indicates this, as it is an established fact in Britain, too. I mention this in order (with no disrespect) to contradict a point made by another respondent, Simon Shek from Ontario. Mr Shek states his belief that “80% of us know how to drive well”. I’m sorry, Mr Shek, but if only that were true! I have no scientific data to support what I am about to say but – with huge experience of dealing with and investigating hundreds of road crashes and, after my time in the police, of teaching hundreds of people to drive – I suggest that the proportion of people who not only know how to drive well but assiduously apply those skills is the corollary of the above figure. In other words I believe that only about 5% of all drivers have true competence. Of those five percent, I would suggest that maybe far less than one fifth have any truly ‘advanced’ skills (after all, how many people are lucky enough to get full and comprehensive training?). And of the remaining 95% I propose that about one tenth of them are diabolically bad drivers.

My suggestion that about ten percent of all drivers are so dreadful is again based only on my own experience and beliefs, not on scientific data. I am of the opinion that maybe one in ten of all drivers is, on some occasions at least, prepared to undertake ludicrous maneuvers without any concern for the safety or feelings of other people. Logically, that leaves us with about 85% of the driving population sitting somewhere in between the truly competent and the reckless/homicidal group. In one sense, that is far too large a proportion to generalise about but I am going to say that all of the people in this massive group make mistakes every single time that they drive, even if only for a short distance. Any variation in their mistakes is merely a matter of degree or frequency. They are the people who, whilst not deliberately reckless, have completely lost sight of even the basic standards that they were taught in preparation for their driving tests and now employ a broad array of bad habits. They are the people who simply because they have been fortunate enough to avoid injury and maybe even vehicular damage, over a period of months or years, have convinced themselves that it is because they are “good” drivers.

One point that I wish to make closely echoes that of the author of the original article, Gary Mawgood, though – again with considerable respect – I would word it slightly differently than him. The truth of the matter is that nobody, and I do mean nobody, can adequately learn about anticipation of hazards on their own or from reading books. It is a much, much more comprehensive skill than any untrained driver could possibly imagine. And it is a skill which must be learned thoroughly and then practiced constantly. Avoiding accidents is arguably at least 99% about anticipation and planning and no more than say 1% about emergency avoidance techniques. In almost every case, for a truly good driver, getting into a crisis would be a humiliating failure in itself. As with dangerous illnesses, prevention is so much better than cure. Am I saying that people should not be taught emergency avoidance techniques? No. No way! Everybody should be taught them. Everybody should be taught them in preparation for those immensely rare occasions where a crisis situation is entirely unforeseeable, and everybody should be taught them as a necessary part of their complete understanding of the full range of skills available to drivers.

Gary makes many good points in his article but one of the most important – if not the most important – is his reference to eye ‘control’ in an emergency. “Wherever you look, so shall you go”, should be a phrase that is drummed into all learner drivers. But unless they are taught this particular skill carefully and correctly, it is one more thing that will quickly be forgotten during the chain of ‘experience’ that convinces so many people that they are good drivers when in fact they are, frankly, very poor indeed.

Simon Shrek, on the other hand (and again, I mean no disrespect) makes a comment at the other end of the spectrum, which I feel must be refuted. I agree with you, Simon, that certainly in the N.E. states of the USA (I can’t really speak for elsewhere in the country) American drivers do show a considerable degree of tolerance and frequent good manners. But then (even as a “stuffy Englishman”!) I have found the people of these New England states and western New York to be delightfully polite in all walks of life, not just in driving. Yes, I too have heard the jokes that in America if you get rude to another driver you might end up getting shot. But the hard fact is that America – with about 42,000 people killed on the roads each year – has a diabolical road safety record for what is, in many other respects, the world’s leading nation (vastly more deaths than the annual total of non-familial homicides, by the way, so I’m not sure what math you were referring to).

If you check comparative figures for road crash fatalities around the world, on the IRTAD online database – www.bast.de/htdocs/fachthemen/irtad/english/we2.html – you will find that, in terms of deaths per 100,000 population, the USA is a disasterous 24th place in the rankings (year 1999 – latest figures). I admit that it was to my surprise that in1999 the UK took over from Norway and Sweden (traditionally the top countries) and reached 1st place. America’s death rate of 15.3 per 100,000 is over two and a half times worse than Britain’s and is worse than Australia’s and Canada’s, too, so I regret that whilst your compliment to American drivers may hold true for their apparent manners, Simon, it certainly does not reflect the actual safety of their driving. Greece, Portugal, Poland and Korea, incidentally, are the only countries listed which have a worse death rate than the States. Apart from anything else, I think that this state of affairs reflects America’s otherwise laudable policy that it is the land of the free and that people should make up their own minds about things. But patently this ‘free and easy’ approach does not work too well when it comes to road safety and I concur entirely with Ken in his comments about seat belts, etc.

On a different topic, Ken, I’m afraid that I cannot agree with you that most drivers are even remotely observant enough. They may be taught to ‘see’ but they soon forget to look.

To complete my background details – in support of the opinions I have expressed above – my last three years in the police were spent on an innovative team of full-time road safety lecturers. After leaving the force, I worked for six years as a (Department of Transport) Approved Driving Instructor and was the supervisory instructor for the county of Cumbria for The British School of Motoring (Blackpool) Ltd. – part of Britain’s largest driving school. I was invited to become a driving test examiner but declined (terrible salary!). More recently, I was invited to form and become the managing director of an advanced driver-training company in Britain, and in doing so I set up a team of former police advanced instructors to cover all of England. Most recently, in terms of driving, I was selected as the north of England driver for the delivery of human organs between hospitals, for transplantation. This was a task undertaken at extremely high speeds (with police permission) because of the massive urgency of the situations - sometimes in excess of 140mph on motorways. I am currently in the USA and now concentrate on my writing.

May I close by adding that I applaud Ken’s comments about the socio-economic factors that can convolute the entire driver training issue but would qualify this by saying that I think no single agency could cover all aspects of the overall safety problem. What people such as myself and Gary (and any other people who have been fortunate enough to receive full training) can address has to be limited – in my opinion – to the practical skills and physical precautions of safer driving. Any social aspects must – I believe – be left to experts in that field and, sadly, may go largely neglected.

I thought no one else was going to take up the discussion, and I found Eddie Wren’s comments very thought provoking. The level and intensity of training that he talks about is far beyond what most of us could aspire to or, I suspect, even want to get to.

I think that is the point. And I say that having done three ‘advanced’ driving courses and two that were more along the lines of general roadcraft. Having done all of that I am painfully aware of limitations in vehicle control skills, and that some of the things I learnt I have lost (skills that are not continually practised are extinguished pretty rapidly – think of anything in the sporting field, for example). There is also the point that many people simply won’t be able to develop high skills. For example, I don’t know what would be the drop-out rate in the police driver training that Eddie Wren spoke about, but I’ll be willing to stick my neck out and say that far less than half of those who start the course, graduate. How much more would that apply for the rest of us?

Eddie made another point that occurred to me long ago, and that I have not seen anyone else take up. He referred to “the people who simply because they have been fortunate enough to avoid injury and maybe even vehicular damage”. I have long been of the view that many must survive on the roads more by good luck (and sometimes perhaps other people’s avoidance tactics) than by good management. This might be facilitated by the strongly habitual nature of many people’s driving activities, and it is known that older people often reduce the risks by restricting the scope and the times they drive. Perhaps others do also.

I stand by the main point I made in my previous post: I think the biggest issue is not treating the driving as a task in itself, worthy of concentration, conscious thought and attention and judgement. I agree with Eddie’s point: whether we learn adequately to ‘see’ when learning to drive may be debatable, but many and perhaps most, forget to look. And so people are suddenly confronted with ‘emergency’ situations that they then have to work their way out of, without of course enough skill to do so. All that is without taking into account the non-driving related motivational issues I mentioned earlier.

So where does that leave us? We have a population of drivers who perform less well than they ought, and road trauma rates that would be unacceptable in any other field of human endeavour (look at the changes that have taken place in industrial safety, for example). Many regard pre-licence training as inadequate; some argue that too many unfit people are permitted to drive at all. But in societies whose infrastructure is built around the car (far more the case in the Australia and USA than in the UK, which I visited in 2000), restricting the right to drive has enormous social and political consequences. I do not think more severe penalties are the answer, although more visible enforcement might be, because of the point I have made earlier that many more crashes result from driver error (including inattention, failure to see etc) than from deliberate infringements of the rules.

To put it bluntly, it is difficult to legislate for poor attitudes and inattention. A senior Australian researcher once remarked that “control of human behaviour and human performance is neither the only aspect nor, perhaps, even the most important aspect of traffic safety”. Many of the big strides in safety have been made through modifying the vehicle and the road environment to reduce the consequences of error: seat belts, air bags, and energy absorption properties; separating opposing streams of traffic and providing run-off areas; removing roadside obstacles, and a host of others too numerous to mention. Now available and spreading rapidly from the top end of the vehicle market are ABS, proximity radar, active suspension and vehicle stability management. Under experiment are systems to detect driver impairment from any cause (fatigue, alcohol, other drugs) and to warn the driver and progressively shut down vehicle systems if the driver does not respond appropriately.

We have done a great deal to reduce the consequences of crashes, and the next phase is going to be increased attention to reducing crashes (which is what many of the technologies above relate to). But that means that we are going to have to accept a significantly greater amount of control and probably supervision, and even be subject to our control of our vehicles being overridden. I personally find these prospects unpalatable, but significantly improved road safety is probably going to require them, or something like them.

This is one of the kinds of ‘costs’ that I referred to in my earlier post. World wide, road trauma has essentially plateaued over the last five years or so. Although Australia’s deaths for 2001 stood at 1750 (the lowest ever), that is within 20 of the total for four out of the last five years (in 2000 the figure was 1823). That may well nevertheless represent a ‘real’ improvement in the light of population and motorisation changes but is probably not good enough if Australia’s target of 5.6 deaths per 100,000 population by 2010 (down from 9.3 in 2000) is to be reached.

Where we go from here is going to require society to ask and answer the question “how much are we prepared to pay?”

I have to agree to everything that Ken, Gary, and Eddie have to say. Of course the problem is that drivers come from many jurisdictions all with varied rules, licensing procedures, and lifestyles. We cannot back-teach and train drivers who are already licensed.

All we can do is start from where we are. In any endeavour one must first set goals. My own goal was to teach each and every student to drive crash-free. To do that I would have to become the best in the world. I would have to find all the answers myself. One of my challenges was that human error appeared to go beyond training and the so-called vaunted and fleeting skills of youth. One really had to find out why 76% of the military driver experts called in from all over America could not handle an emergency situations. Was my job doomed as both Haddon and Nader suggested, when they firmly stated that no one can drive always in such a manner as to guarantee their lives. They felt the only way to save us from one another is to build an impregnable car. Because of that after the 60s, the seeking of answers to why we kill ourselves appeared to stagnate in my view. In a classical case of follow the money, research appeared to be only concerned with the black and white, right or wrong, legal or illegal fueled by the lucrative fields of law and insurance companies. They were the major stakeholders, and they did not appear to have a desire to look beyond culpability. Accident research investigation started at the skid marks. No one appeared interested in the events leading up to the skid. Well some were, the enumerators, the number crunchers and the insurance company who were able to predict percentages of group crashes but were way off the mark on individuals. Effectively there did not appear much in the way of causation, other than generalities.

Real World Instructors, down in the trenches were left to fend for themselves, some just loading the gun, some as they matured brought an excellence to the profession. Little of this valuable knowledge was or is passed on. In the meantime governments were hampered by their inability to bring a top-down-approach, since there were jurisdictional problems. Provincial safety budgets were left bare, since the money flowed to road building and maintenance. The Feds had no say in what the provinces should do, and did not want to appear to meddle and appeared to take the role of advisor. Top down did not appear to work. No one was interested in a bottom up view, though that was increasingly being recognized in the corporate world as the key to success.

Ken Smith sends a warning to all reactive drivers, a warning that would be well heeded by those super-reactive drivers Magwood and Wren. The vaunted and decaying skills of youth, are not some individual ability, nor a special mantle bestowing miraculous driving powers upon the reactive driver. These are the normal, and I emphasize normal, body-to-action skills typical to that special time, youth.

A system of driving that will not stand the test of time and protect us when we are 70 or 80 is suspect. A system of driving that relies more on micro-second dichotomies of choice, rather than a system that works with our internal body protection system, will not stand up to mental/physical processes that are not always up to the split second demands of reactive driving. Racing drivers, the epitome of the reactive driver, drive on the edge so to speak, and are notorious for falling off the edge and having horrendous crashes.. Developing reactive driver training courses that will deteriorate over a short space of time without the necessary practice, raises questions, as Ken points out to us. In referring to the shared brain-nerve-synapse wish-to-action mechanism, John Hughlins Jackson in the early part of the last century stated this law “The nerve functions (processes) that are the latest to develop are the earliest to be destroyed.” This explains the phenomena whereby some skills deteriorate relatively quick, while others are difficult to extinguish.. There also is a neural-brain-implicit memory function that experts term habituation, whereby actions that are repeated become imprinted subliminally and are able to exercise executive control over our actions. Classically, think of a rural road deep in the hinterland, each day a farmer drives up to the highway looks, there is never anyone there he so he pulls out. Now think of the time that you are driving down that same rural road, your driving at speed it is beautiful day, the sun is shining, the roads are clear up ahead a farm truck pulls up and stops, just as you get close he pulls out. The farmer has fallen to a form of habituation where prior memories have built up a schema within his implicit memory that to all intents and purposes tricks him. When the farmer took the DDC course and it told him to ‘expect the unexpected’ it didn’t suggest that he would do something that he would never do if not tricked into it by his own body. We are that farmer. Since the farmer is human. Since humans err. Since we are human, therefore it is possible for us as humans to commit the same type of any number of habituation errors.

We speak of choices, consider that drivers choose, or are led to a choice of either driving in a physically relaxed manner or to drive in a state of arousal. Each require a differing protective training to sensitize the driver to the errors that can and probably will occur. If a driver is led to a choice of driving in a permanent state of excitement or arousal, or an event-by-event arousal, the processes that govern his body’s internal protective system creates unique problems.

When a driver is driving in a state of arousal, perhaps misinterpreting existing knowledge, he might feel that it is imperative that he be ‘tense, in order to be alert’ Van Winkle(1972) Impact, A Course for the Design of Personal Crash Free Driving. The DDC might have primed him to arousal by unintentionally implying that ‘the Other Guy’ is deliberately, imminently and criminally out to get him. (Van Winkle) Thus, the driver has a greater flow of adrenal hormones to get the body ready for increased effort. Since the driver is just sitting and driving and no great evasive effort is required to handle normal events the result is stress or an over-reactive crash potential response.. A state of arousal makes driving ‘exciting’, so now we have a driver who enjoys driving because of the excitement. What is interesting is that arousal primes us for sudden action or sudden emotional responses. It takes over control, bypassing cortical processes, and sets a driver up for emotional reactions of anger and anxiety. See our body in the role of protector, cannot wait for us to think in response to normal roadway events that we perceive as dangerous, it is geared when aroused and ready for an immediate response.. It gets the cortex out of the way, inhibiting a cortical response, there being no time to think. With luck no crash occurs.

Whether the response is one of delayed and inhibited outrage that leads to rants, or it is immediate and reactive that leads to ‘road rage’ appears moot. The aroused body is ready to take sudden reactive responses, and might cause the driver to make an over-reactive response.

A driver who chooses to drive in a relaxed and easy manner must be trained. However, Amos Neyhardt, Penn State, creator of the first High School Driver Education Programs, suggested that each driver could train himself viscerally to drive as a perfect driver. Since there is no such thing as an error free driving, thus a perfect driver, this gives pause. His definition of a perfect driver is one who under all conditions, could drive so smoothly that a glass of water sitting upon the dashboard would not spill. Thus as a driver employed this automatic feedback error detection system, his driving would become smoother and smoother. His driving style would naturally, at least in most cases, lead to a relaxed and easy method of driving. It has little to do with choice of speed but everything to do with smoothness. Internally his body matches its internal speed with the external speed of the car automatically adjusting the speed for both internal and external conditions. His vision widens, and his forward focus also includes without effort ’the big picture.’

When such things as an automatic “claustrophobic illusionary response’ occurs when in the neighbourhood of downtown tall buildings, or while passing or being passed by large trucks and buses, or passing over narrow bridges, or through seemingly narrow tunnels and his vision starts to narrow a visceral response senses and adjusts his speed by going a little easier, until the body is able to relax.

In an attempt to apply objectivity to the concepts relating to human error, Ken will be interested to know that in the 70s, I deliberately made a choice to drive as a human. I have not and do not drive as a super driver, only as a normal driver. I continue to drive this way to this day. I deliberately chose not drive as though driving was a task. I knowingly drive as I walk with a simple ‘thought-to-action’ process, recognizing that no thought is necessary to drive.

I applied and tested every concept prior to inclusion on the course. I simply sat back relaxed and drove, utilizing my ‘wish-to-action’ system in order to find out why humans crash, and what is missing in the equation that leads to the final fatal accident. I teach and drive to a simple model of driving. I have seldom had to rely on the professional instructor hiding inside.

In order to develop a crash-free course, I had to go back to fatal accidents and ask why they occurred. Simply, they fell into two categories. A driver all by himself lost control of his vehicle. One or another of drivers did not brake in time. This was set as the core, taking precedence over a more legitimized traditional legal rule based system, a system that appeared to set rules before accident prevention, the safety of the driver, or totally ignored legalizing etiquette. This was the starting point for course design. Loss of control appeared to be possible by any driver regardless of experience, although it affected the young and women more than men.

Braking was seen as the most important core error that led to fatal accidents. Developing a taxonomy of driving appeared to need to not stray from the ‘natural’ view of driving, with more emphasis upon those natural or inherent reflexive reactive processes in order to fit a more common explanation of taxonomy as a categorization of a natural order. Thus the following evolved based upon observation, and analysis of error.

Students are taught and trained to never steer suddenly, gas suddenly or brake suddenly, eliminating the element of surprise for other highway users. It would also eliminate out-of-control accidents.

I always brake and teach to brake for a focal point prior to an event at a ratio of car lengths relative to speed. They are taught that in order to see an event up the road their attention must be up the road. They remember as little kids that they used to yell at driver on the road with them to ‘Watch where your going!’

They are also taught that their vision will want to lock onto the farthest point of obstructed vision, for example their eyes will look beyond a curve and lock onto bushes or other features ahead and the other side of the roadway. They are taught that their vision will lock onto a stalled car, a parked car, or any obstruction on a roadway. This locked on vision that looks past the point of slowing or stopping will only demand braking for this farthest locked on targeting.

They are trained and taught to imagine a vehicle ahead entering the curve slowly, and to slow for this imaginary vehicle. They are taught to imagine that there is slow vehicle ahead of them on entering an on or off ramp of a freeway, and to slow for the imaginary vehicle. They are taught to imagine a pedestrian crossing when they are coming up to a ‘go’ turn, and to brake for the imaginary pedestrian. They know their vision will lie to them when it comes to braking.

Students are trained and taught the reason to eliminate the dichotomy of choice. Opting at all times stay straight, within the lane, and that sudden steering at speed will cause plowing and could end up end-over-end. They know that a simple braking response has many benefits, it limits the dichotomy of choice, reduces impact speed, and extends time for a varied response or responses.

Students are made aware that they should never enter the space behind any vehicle moving or stopped at too fast a rate of speed, employing the concept of ‘not hitting the space cushion too fast.’

We always drive as though we have a glass of water on the dashboard, and attempt not to spill a drop on starts, stops, curves and turns.

I always recognize and teach that signaling should be related to the speed of following traffic assumed to be speeding and requiring extra warning. I do not signal at the ‘implied maximum’, Van Winkle, Impact (1965), that is stated in the HTA as the minimum distance in town and in the country. I recognize that my body will want to delay the signal as a ratio of my actual vehicle speed and must fight this tendency. We know that this unconscious delayed response to signal will confuse the other drivers, vary his ability to react. It could be the cause of a fatal accident on highways or freeways and seems to be supported by J P Rothe.

I know that my internal clock will give me a sense of urgency. I also know that in the AAA film on the trip across Chicago, the time difference from one suburb to the other through the loop, had the anticipating driver only 5 minutes behind the go-getum driver. I also know that most trips are far shorter. I also know that the Canadian Forces on a similar but highway route of 1800 miles showed the ‘harum-scarum’ driver arriving only a half hour ahead of the more patient driver. Again most trips I make are less than 1800 miles. Certainly, now days I make such a trip in increments, with stops at camp grounds, motels or restaurants.

I also know that the other guy is not out to get me. I know he will make mistakes. I also know I will make mistakes. I am never concerned about the other driver. I hardly notice he is on the road.

My students and myself are aware that it is a natural propensity to be surprised. We also know that our brains are set up to erase certain memories in the input portion of our brain to make room for new inputs. We know that memories from moment to moment are compared inside our brain and new elements added. We know that these ‘implicit memories’, these schemas, these ‘motion pictures’ can be stored in locations within the brain. If they are stored with an attitudinal influence of fear , similar events will trigger our ‘startle response’. We also know that even though we are programmed to be surprised by normal events, we also know that we have a choice of refusing to be surprised, staying relaxed, and simply responding. We know that there will always be amber lights, hidden stop signs, suddenly parking vehicles, pedestrians, horses on the freeways, large dogs downtown in traffic at rushhour, bumble-bees in the car, slippery roads, wet roads, dark nights, the list goes on, of all things that are on the road, of people that share the road. We make a conscious choice to never being surprised. The startle response simply causes too much distortion.

We know that any obstruction, or potential obstruction is just that. Novelty does not trigger an internal body protective arousal response, simply a deceleration response.

I always allow more than the implied maximum following distance. I recognize and teach that the minimum following distance suggested is only remembered as so many seconds, or so many car lengths, and the word ‘minimum’ gets lost along the way. The students are aware of a maximum distance and drive to a comfortable maximum which tends to encourage and allow following cars to flow around with ease. This is easily demonstrated to the novice.

I know that the DDC asks, ‘Is this pass necessary?’ I also know that it is never necessary to pass. I also do not start a ‘rooster tale’ behind a slower moving vehicle if I choose not to pass, instead I might drop back a quarter mile allowing more urgent drivers to flow out around and into ‘my space’. As noted by others I usually catch up to the passing drivers. The drivers with the furthest destination, are more likely to speed, feeling they have the most to gain, and pass when other critical drivers would not do so. We also realize that the reason the vehicle ahead is slow is because he is getting ready to turn, and naturally he will be turning not right but left, in this case across the oncoming, or passing lane. (We drive on the wrong side in Canada)

When my graduates feel that for some reason they want still want to pass on a two lane roadway, they know that they can judge the distance, but are unable like all humans to judge the speed accurately of the oncoming cars. They are taught that if they cannot tell if the oncoming vehicle is a car, or a pickup or a semi-trailer truck then it is safe to pass. If they can tell what the vehicle is it is not safe to pass. When they might for some reason feel they should pass at night they are told that if the headlights of the oncoming vehicle appears to be fused into one light, then it is safe to pass. I know it could be a motorcycle or a car with a burnt out headlight, which is why the tentative decision making process. If they see two distinct headlights, why then the pass is dangerous and we will not attempt.

My graduates and I understand that since the DDC teaches to allow a minimum passing time of ten seconds, to pass on the highway, it also must take more than ten seconds to leave a stop sign onto a main highway when moving from a dead stop. Van Winkle (1976).

My students and I never make a full decision in the few situations that require a decision. The decision is always tentative, and made after actually starting to move the vehicle, reserving always the right to change our minds. We never make snap decisions, nor sudden decisive moves. The decision is always a nice easy decision, or we do not commit. Students are taught to look for a safe time to go, then start to go, and then if it is still clear to make the final decision. We always make a decision based upon the thought of what might happen if the car stalled partway through our move. When passing the final decision is not made until beside the car we are passing, always reserving the right to drop back. On lane changes the steering is always slight, in the event that two cars are trying to change lanes into the same lane, since that is where the space is. Thus we can change our mind part way in. The same movement of the wheel is important if your novice is changing lanes near a back lane or intersection, since the last time the waiting and checking car looked you were in the other lane. If the steering is gradual, it is easier to change your mind, or to miss the vehicle easily should it come out too far into the lane before realizing your intentions.

I teach and drive realizing that it is not how quick one gets on the gas or the brake. It is how far we push the pedal that makes the car go faster or slower. We also know that the importance of ‘reaction time’ is largely mythic. We have trained ourselves to make smooth easy foot and hand movements. We know that unlike a misperception of normal events, a real event, such as the sudden deer from the ditch will trigger our body to respond with a reaction as good as any other driver professional or not. Seniors, and physically challenged, indeed all novices have been observed to react and respond appropriately, with the sudden appearance of a vehicle or pedestrian within the immediate ‘danger zone’.

Each student realizes that like most accidents, most lessons happen under ideal conditions. They realize, at least the young, that conditions are not always ideal. Consequently each student is trained and taught to drive as though both internal and external conditions are less then perfect. Actually this is just reinforcement of the above processes that they are taught and trained to do. This is the underlying motivator that recognizes self preservation as the first instinct that controls our motor functions. Thus they are always taught to drive as though they had just been up for 36 hours straight due to the press of personal and employment time imperatives.

They are taught to drive as though their abilities are impaired. They are taught to never make a decision to go in the face of oncoming traffic based upon ideal conditions, as set out above. They know that habituation can colour all our abilities, and are asked what kind of decisions they would make if they had the flu. They are taught that it is too late to adapt their adjust their abilities and they must always drive to a model that takes into consideration all eventualities. These are all subliminal processes and an observer would not notice a difference between this driver and another. However, an observer sitting inside the vehicle would feel a sense of security, and would be able to sit back and relax..

All students are taught the importance of knowledge of traffic laws, since in the event of the unthinkable, a crash, high priced litigation experts could be arrayed against them. Thus it is extremely important to know the right of way rules and to know how to write an accident report. It is also extremely important to be able to draw a scene that reflects the actual conditions. Most reports are distorted, and drawing ability might imply that even though you were not culpable, distorted drawings could and would be used in both a criminal court and a civil court against you.

If the industry will recognize driving as wish to action processes and less a logical intellectual(cognitive) pursuit, driving can be redefined, the training vs education debate will be better understood, consistent standards will be developed, and drivers can learn to make themselves crash-resistant.

As an instructor who teaches starting, stopping and steering on a quiet parking lot which allows highway speeds of up to 60 mph, the emphasis is only on teaching the causes of skidding and how leaving a straight path with any part of the vehicle could be disastrous.

On a course time of 2 hours driving is split between two students in 15 minute segments.They are taught that gassing too much or too suddenly will cause a skid. They are taught that steering too much or too suddenly will cause a skid. They are taught that braking too much or too suddenly will cause a vehicle to skid. They are also taught that allowing a vehicle to skid might have their vehicle move around on the road, over a curb, into a pedestrian queue, or over an embankment. They are taught that the vehicle would be better to stay in a straight path at all times.

They are shown that if they are gassing and the car starts to skid, stopping gassing and car will stop skidding. They are shown that when they are steering and the car starts to skid, steadying up on the steering and a with slight correction, the natural ability of steering as learned while perfecting turns the vehicle will stop skidding. Right and of course look ahead, and with that they are told that if there really is an out-of-control problem looking ahead allows their normal turn wheel recovery will naturally allow them to straighten, and aid in controlling the car. Wait for it. They are also taught that if they are braking and the car starts to skid, stop braking and the car will stop skidding… God, I love that one! There is only one method of braking that allows a driver to stop braking when a skid commences, and that is if the driver brakes ahead of his stop. The novice driver is taught to brake-and-roll. He is taught that his vision as a protective system while driving is deficient, it insists through executive control over the thought-to-action system that the feet do not have to brake until the very last moment. They are taught that this deficiency will stay with them day-by-day, trip-by-trip, mile-by-mile, and from the first day of licensing to the last day when 70, 80, and 90 years of age. Traditionally this visual deficiency has been labeled and accepted by the traffic safety community unquestioning as, “inattention and failure to anticipate” is in fact built into an evolutionary protective system that is limited to only the immediate area near the drivers body.

Novice drivers and experienced drivers are asked a question, which is better a skid, where your vehicle moves about on the roadway, or a slide? They all agree that although it is unimportant on a huge parking lot whether the car slews, in the Real World any deviation from a straight path could be disastrous for them and for other highway users.

Experts will tell us that there are a variety of skids, a front wheel drift, a rear wheel drift, and even a four wheel drift, and a fourth one that is best described as a slide.

Most drivers would prefer a slide, in a straight path. In a modern world where more and more vehicles are together with you on the road, and there are more and more lanes with vehicles beside you, the only place where a vehicle can safely move on less than a straight line is our secluded training parking lot. As is obvious, that only leaves “proper braking” as the only alternative, eliminating the dichotomy of choice problem for novice drivers.

Novice drivers are taught that when a bullet, an arrow or a vehicle is moving at a rapid velocity it tends to travel in a straight path. A skid, as opposed to a slide occurs only when momentum is dissipated. What this means to the driver is that they should never be afraid to use the brake, or to lock-up the brakes. I doubt anyone will dispute the fact that the skid marks, the rubber left on the roadway are evidence of friction dissipation which means the vehicle is slowing.

Crash investigators never find indications of underbraking by examining the evidence left by late braking caused by visual defects of the normal internal visual body-protection systems. They can only state that one or another of the vehicles involved in a crash failed to “brake sufficiently”. Attempts by the Haddon/Nader influences to protect us from ourselves puts the blame for crashes upon the vehicle mechanisms, and not on the visual wish-to-action mechanisms. Instead of giving us vehicles with brakes that will more efficiently dissipate friction and heat, or tires with more grip, the powers that be have given us vehicles that underbrake and further exacerbate our human deficiencies. The upshot is that our novice drivers must brake for a focal point, that is a “space cushion” 5 or 6 vehicle lengths ahead of a temporary, or permanent obstruction.

Eddie, I have never had the experience of “over-speeding” although I have ridden with a friend in the RCMP, a member of the highway patrol, in the winter, on roads with icy patches at the speeds you mention, 120 to 140 miles per hour. The Corporal was unconcerned, relaxed, talkative and discussed the poor replacement tires that the RCMP fitted their vehicles with at that time several years ago. Some trips were in the dead of night, some were in the daytime. After the first few miles of that first trip while holding onto the “Holy Crap” bar, I was able to sit back and relax with the driver after realizing that the vehicle at those speeds will continue in a straight line. With that realization it is easy to sit back and relax. Physics is now your friend, and there is less the need to rely on the expert driving skills of this professional driver.

Time varies with an individual. Remember in school when it was 5 to 12, and it seemingly took hours for the clock hands to move to noon. Remember as well, that no sooner than lunch had started it seemed that bell was ringing you back to class for the afternoon. Novice drivers are asked how fast they were going when on a jet plane doing 750mph, they all pipe up and say, ”That’s easy, 750mph!” In fact its obvious upon reflection that they are not moving, they can leave their seat when the light goes out and walk to the bathroom, a drink is not plastered all over them. The question then is how fast is a driver moving when he is driving, speeding, or “over-speeding”? He is not moving, only the vehicle is moving.. However, if we look closely at some of these drivers we realize that internally these drivers appear to be driving at the speed of the car, or appear to be driving faster than they car.. They are sitting crouched over the wheel, tension oozes, they are in a state of arousal. They appear to be on the edge, ready for anything, ready for “the other guy”. In fact what happens, is vision will narrow, their reactions although faster are said to be “cruder” by psychobiologists, and time enters into the area of events happening “too fast” The reference here is to accident reports where the surviving driver states “It all happened too fast, I didn’t have enough time.” If our drivers is not moving and only the vehicle is moving, why can they not sit back and relax?. If they cannot sit back and relax why are they driving so fast? The novice is taught that “body sensing” and “visceral learning” is important, at any speed, and that at any time that their internal sense makes them aware of their internal speed, they should drive a little easier and sit back and relax. If a driver is not moving then there is no need for fast reactions, just smooth easy feet and hand actions.

In crash avoidance or crash proofing, experts speak of a dichotomy of choice, or should I brake, should I steer, should I brake, should I steer. DDC, the teaching arm of the NSC and CSC, borrowing from ancient lore, states that when you are driving, and an event occurs you should . ”See, Think and React”. Is it necessary to think in order to react? If our driver is busy thinking who then is driving? It is only when the wrong reaction occurs that an event may turn into a crash. Can we and should we attempt to eliminate the dichotomy of choice. Let’s look at it. At speed, an event occurs ahead, our driver steers, and in spite of a best effort the situation changes and he crashes. Obviously, he has crashed at speed. This does not appear to be the best choice. Another driver driving at speed, sees an event unfolding, he brakes firmly, or might even lock up the brakes, while he is braking the vehicle is slowing, the driver has nothing to do sitting with his foot on the brake. He has varied time and now can make an easier decision to steer, left or right around the event. As in the first instance should the situation change and a crash occur, he will have brought down the speed of his vehicle, and will more likely have less personal damage than the first driver. If our second driver is trained to brake for the imaginary “space cushion” between him and the event, the event will probably dissipate, that is unless it is a permanent obstruction.

How this “emergency braking” is taught, as opposed to the methods in the British Model, at least as I understand it, is the emphasis on how firmly the brake is pressed and less or no emphasis on the movement of the foot from the gas to the brake. Observations of drivers over time shows that a pure reactive response, elsewhere described as rapid yet crude shows a distortion in the movements of the foot with pauses and even inadequate braking for the speed of the vehicle. Situationly, a pause at high speeds while on the brake, or inadequate braking can be disastrous. A smooth relaxed foot movement from the gas to the pressure point and beyond as one movement has proved to be the best method of braking. “It is not how quick you get on the brake, it is how far you push it down that slows or stops the vehicle,” is the reiterative statement used by the instructors throughout the course..

Observations of drivers and braking, showed some interesting results. It raises some questions in regards to “eye-control” First let me say that on a course based upon physiological processes that is the processes that allow the “Nut to Hold the Wheel” both the novice and experienced drivers are taught that the most important factor that makes a good driver is to be physically relaxed at all times. The effect on vision when relaxed is that everything in the “big picture” is available at all times to the driver. The driver is taught that certain internal or external environmental conditions will attempt to shut down vision, and that this will cause a tensing, at that point the driver should drive a little easier and consciously relax. With the novice we require that they actually decelerate, whereas with experienced drivers this slight deceleration is hardly noticeable. The emphasis is on, drive how you feel, a method that would actually have a driver driving easier the more his internal emotional clock (limbic system) tells him he is late.

Observations have shown that although almost impossible to be killed at a traffic light at an urban intersection(you really have to work at it), if you were to be killed it would be at the first or second traffic light entering you city. The highway driver is focused up the road and habituation does not allow him to see the traffic light which is out of his highway-narrowed focal field. This is an unconscious process, but the driver could be killed regardless.

Observation two, If a driver is not looking at a traffic signal, he might go through a red, as our dead highway driver just did. If he is looking at the traffic light, then his automatic foot-to-braking response will unconsciously have him braking “for the red light”. Since most traffic lights are on the far side(the wrong side?) the driver will be braking too late and would have to stop suddenly, in the intersection, or over the stop line. Most drivers will keep their eyes moving and brake for the stop line. This will only give problems in the winter when a visual response to brake at the last minute for the stop line, will have the vehicle sliding into the intersection. Thus the need to be concerned with the fact that focussing up the road, while braking could lead to underbraking.

Underbraking, obviously, will lead to a crash or the need to take sudden reactive steering, a dangerous maneuver at any time. The very fact that the foot-to-brake action is based upon the furthest focus of vision, and by its nature is hidden from our consciousness, that is our intellect, makes this a tendency to brake for this furthest focused point. Simply braking for a point 4 or 5 car lengths short of an obstruction will allow a just-in-time stop.

Driving a simple task, only a few simple actions of the hands and feet, to smoothly use the gas pedal, the brake and the steering wheel, could only be made complex by humans. Those who feel driving is something you think about, talk about and read about rather than something that is accomplished by your wish-to-action processes must by their nature be doomed to learn "millions of holographic memories" in their neo-cortex. Ken Smith is the only writer who seems to be zeroing in on the answer to the question, "What is driving?", when he makes the comments "Furthermore we develop the capacity to do that virtually without conscious thought (there is so much information coming in to be processed and acted upon that we simply could not operate without largely automatic responses)" Yet even Ken seems to think that driving should be complex.

Understanding how our innate inner thought-to-action processes function in the Real World of driving, that is their peculiar abilities and limitations, would be a better job for our intellect. That is, we should be looking at how we as drivers are affected by both the limitations of our intellect and our skills and we must understand it!

All this is the core and is included within classroom instruction, and taught along with more traditional knowledge in the car.

John Van Winkle,impax@altavista.com

At first (i.e. for a period of several months) I was going to leave this alone but frankly I feel that some of John Van Winkle’s points really must be addressed.

Firstly, I must baulk at John’s statement that I am a (quote) “super-reactive driver” – and I suspect that Gary Magwood might similarly flinch at this suggestion. I can only answer this by discussing true advanced driving (and, here, I am certainly not even remotely referring to those silly individuals who think that they can teach what they refer to as ‘advanced driving’, in a few hours or – let’s be generous – a couple of days, on a race track… that is arrant nonsense). Advanced driving, in its proper sense, John, is an extremely lengthy and involved course. Indeed, at its highest levels it involves either two or even three courses, each of three or four weeks duration (and another one or two courses if one adds motorcycling, as well).

The reason I make this point is specifically to counter John’s well intended but entirely spurious implication that advanced drivers are “reactive”. On the contrary, proper advanced driving is entirely about an extreme level or perception and anticipation. “Super-reactive” clearly suggests that a situation is dealt with after it has arisen.

He goes on to comment that “…Haddon and Nader suggested… that no one can drive always in such a manner as to guarantee their lives…” Well, I certainly don’t claim that I could do so, now, because I’m too far out of training (which involves regular refresher courses) and I no longer have the need or lawful justification to ‘keep my hand in’ at high speeds. But I do disagree entirely with Haddon and Nader’s suggestion. A fully trained, advanced driver who was assiduously applying his/her skills could always drive in such a manner as to guarantee his/her life – period. If this reads as being an arrogant response then I apologise because that is not my aim. But, equally, it is hard to see the extreme standards of advanced driving being dismissed by those (Haddon and Nader) who, it would appear, do not fully comprehend its complexity.

John goes on to make some seemingly self-contradictory points. He says, firstly, that: “We… know that the importance of ‘reaction time’ is largely mythic…” and later adds that “Traditionally…visual deficiency has been labeled and accepted by the traffic safety community unquestioning as, ‘inattention and failure to anticipate’…” And yet he also makes the point that: “…There is only one method of braking that allows a driver to stop braking when a skid commences, and that is if the driver brakes ahead of his stop…[sic]”

I really find it quite hard to know where to begin to reply to these comments. It is patently obvious that the vast majority of drivers on roads around the world will always see driving as a chore and/or an inconvenience that merely interrupts the things they would prefer to be doing. Given that circumstance, I believe it is clear that any small residue of sense that those people learned when being taught how to drive is of great importance. That is why enthusiastic teachers, as John clearly is, do a wonderful job and undoubtedly help save lives.

But if we then accept that the same ‘majority of drivers’ will usually relapse into a state of poor concentration, whilst driving, then it becomes facile to claim that “…the importance of ‘reaction time’ is largely mythic…” Reaction time could only become mythic if ALL drivers were operating at the limit of their ability, concentrating far, far beyond – dare I say – the pathetic levels that most drivers employ.

Secondly, John, no matter how it is couched in words, a driver braking “ahead of his stop” cannot, by definition, be someone who is ‘failing to anticipate’.

John also appears to question the value of eye control. I can only address this point as one who was taught to drive, safely, at speeds well in excess of the legal limit and amongst other road users, on public roads. Eye control, under such circumstances, can be vital. But let’s be honest; most people are never – and should never – be allowed or tempted to drive in such a manner, so does that make eye-control an unnecessary skill for ordinary folk? I would argue not, because any skill that will protect you when driving at emergency pace must be of equal value to somebody faced with an unexpected (i.e. un-anticipated) crisis.

On an unrelated point, John adds: “…I doubt anyone will dispute the fact that the skid marks, the rubber left on the roadway are evidence of friction dissipation which means the vehicle is slowing...” But even if (quote) “…What this means to the driver is that they should never be afraid to use the brake, or to lock-up the brakes…” I can only assume, John, that you would teach your pupils/students skidding is a highly ineffective way of slowing a car? Why else would ABS have been invented? And why, in pre-ABS days would we have taught cadence (i.e. rhythm) braking if not because it was vastly more effective than skidding to a standstill? I agree with you in so far as all students – in my estimation – should be encouraged to lock up the brakes during training, somewhere safe, just so that they gain that little bit of experience and can be taught how to get the car back under more control, and thereby stop it much more promptly.

Truly safe driving will never be a skill possessed by anyone who does not apply “conscious thought” to the task. There is indeed a vast amount of information coming in whenever we drive, but whenever we allow ourselves to “operate [with] largely automatic responses" we leave ourselves wide open to danger.

One of the very first things I had hammered into me, on my four-week intermediate driving course, many years ago, was the following definition: ‘Concentration is the complete application of mind and body to a particular endeavour, to the complete exclusion of everything not related to that endeavour.’ It makes no allowance for operating with largely automatic responses. How many people do I know that are capable of such an extreme level of concentration – as in absolute – maybe I’ve met eight or ten, during my police career and the years since then. Can I do it myself? Not to that unbendable extent, no. But surely the secret for anyone aspiring to be a good, safe driver is to strive to do so. The more the concentration (backed by suitable skills-training) the less risk of incident no matter what “Haddon and Nader suggested…”


Lastly, John, you say that you have “…ridden with a friend in the RCMP, a member of the highway patrol, in the winter, on roads with icy patches at speeds [of] 120 to 140 miles per hour. The Corporal was unconcerned, relaxed, talkative…” and that you were eventually “…able to sit back and relax with the driver after realizing that the vehicle at those speeds will continue in a straight line. With that realization it [was] easy to sit back and relax. Physics is now your friend, and there is less the need to rely on the expert driving skills of this professional driver…”

Well – two comments! Firstly, I would not wish to do 120-140mph on roads with icy patches with anyone – not your RCMP friend (and I know the RCMP are good) nor with one of my own former colleagues. You sum it up beautifully when you say that “…the vehicle at those speeds will continue in a straight line…” but if one of those icy patches were to get involved, I don’t care WHO the driver was, I’d be looking for the ejector seat.

Despite the length of my reply, John, I am not trying to decry all that you wrote. I do, however, get the impression that – forgive the pun – you are trying to re-invent the wheel.

Regards,
Eddie

Posting this a year after the last post, still, this subject is on my mind quite a bit.

I have taught traffic violator school in California for 10 years. In each class I ask students who has had any kind of driver education since getting their original drivers license. Typically, out of a class of 30 two drivers will have a commerical license and one driver will have had either defensive driving in the classroom mandated by work or -rarely- actual behind the wheel training on a track through a police, military or racing agency.

In California a person needs only about 40 hours of total "education" to driver until they die. I figure this means that most people are very lucky and can keep repeating mistakes and demonstrating poor skills without serious consequences.

In a class of 30 half of the class will have been in "some kind" of car crash while, on average, it takes 3 classes to come up with a student who has been hospitalized longer than overnight because of a crash. But surprisingly -perhaps not- in a class of 30 almost always some 3 to 5 people will have had friends or family who have died on the road.

When my students rate themselves as drivers (excellent, better than average, average, don't be on the road with me) most students rate themselves as "average" with a good number "better than average" and a few who feel they are "excellent" drivers -despite having had no behind the wheel or further classroom work in years.

A pediatrician interviewed on "Dateline" about children in crashes said, in response to why parents don't take care that their kids are properly buckled up: "They think they won't get in a wreck and if they do it won't hurt."

Drivers seem to have a mentality that it's a videogame, a tv show beyond the windshield. I try to get my students to realize the potential conseqences of that and to slow down.

In a class of 30, 25 to 28 will be there for speeding and I try to get the point across that speeding can have devasting consequences.

But why isn't a refresher course in driver attitude mandatory at license renewal? Why aren't teenagers mandated to attend a class specifically designed for them? Why aren't these young high risk drivers who get a ticket required to attend driver ed annually for 2 or 3 years?

One fellow in a class, when I mentioned ideas like this, replied that it would be an imposition on 'our' lifestyles. Recently I read a quote from AAA about an internet traffic school. It said something like: do this internet school - why go AWOL from your life for a whole day?

Driving seems to be a 'right,' and everyone believes that they are a good/safe driver and have no need to learn anything more.

Our politicians and lawmakers would not touch this area because of public backlash. Dr. Runge of the NHTSA said the 42,000 a year dead was "obscene," and asked where the protesters were.

No one gets worked up about a traffic fatality caused by driver distraction, except the family and friends but they are on their own. Contrast that to the community outpouring regarding a drunk driving headline-maker.

The DUI issue has powerful focus but the rest of it just seems all diffuse nothing to think about much less get worked up about and certainly not an issue that would require going AWOL from an entire day of one's life.

California's Office of Traffic Safety has published an article called "Youthquake," looking at the coming numbers of teen drivers. They call it potentially "catastrophic."

Add in the future senior drivers, the failures of our road systems and the huge numbers of used SUVs that will be driven by the drivers under 25 and we're in for some gruesome times.

I am at a loss as to why this public health (the physical carnage as well as the mental suffering) issue doesn't seem to be making onto the radar of those in power.

(If you're interested you can read the letters I've sent to judges and others regarding driver education, at Traffic School Hell)