I’m thinking 10 years to implement the project once it has been approved by the legislature. Getting that approval? Changing enough attitudes, infrastructure, and finding the dollars to pay for it? I’d think at least 5 years from now, more likely 10. I agree with you that the stumbling blocks are many and varied, but I don’t think it’s a cart-before-the-horse scenario. Were I supreme dictator, the licensing changes would come in conjunction with improved road ways, better public transport, and better access to education. A very, very expensive prospect, without question, but I believe it is doable if enough people were committed to making it happen.
netscape6: I wouldn’t make retraining free, but then again, licence renewal isn’t free either, at least not anywhere I’ve lived. I would simply include it in the cost of licence renewals.
I also agree with many of you that better enforcement would help the whole situation. I frankly believe the consequences of a driving violation are way too mild. I’d be inclined to double or triple fines and cut the number of demerits a driver has in half. That would give the laws real teeth. I’ve also knocked around the idea of building a system into cars that prevents them from changing lanes or roads without the use of a turn signal. Just something to think about…
The problems:
-cars very powerful and dangerous
-people getting killed in cars and being hit by cars
-people driving carelessly and dangerously
The solutons:
-make cars less powerful. Hydrogen or electric powered city cars comes to mind. Make the cars dirt cheap, and able to go a top speed of 75 km/hr.
-put controls on the cars:
-can’t turn the steering wheel without moving a turn signal
-put electronic device in cars that interferes with cellphone reception so calls can’t be taken or made in cars
-proximity sensors on front and back bumpers of cars; you get too close to the car in front of you, loud alarm goes off until you are back into “two-second rule” space
-alcohol sensors - breathe over 0.08% BAC, car won’t start.
-car monitors lane changing movements. Over a certain number in a given period of time, warning alarm goes off.
-train people better. Longer, more comprehensive training. More rewards for good driving. Driver training courses include psychological component, so road rage and bad attitudes like mnemosyne’s are reduced.
I think that’s an excellent analysis. Granted, my US driving has been mostly in California, but the sheer percentage of people talking on handheld cellphones is frightening. I mean, their friggin’ Explorers or Tahoes or what have you must have cost $25,000 at least, what’s an extra $100 for a car kit?
The thing is, most people in the LA area don’t seem to drive badly per se, but they sure show a lot of obnoxious traits, like talking on their phones. Then again, I’ve been raked over the coals before for thiking CA represents the US, so I’ll reserve national judgment here.
Hmm, good point, enipla. I didn’t say they were perfect ideas.
Coldfire, the driving in LA that you’ve described also describes Calgary driving, so I think obnoxious behaviour may be universal in North America at this point.
I would also like to point out that I think Canadians may be among the best drivers in the world; our accident rate isn’t the lowest, but we do have a low rate coupled with lots and lots of driving (Canadians drive a lot- in this coming long weekend, a whole lot of people are going to get in their cars and go anywhere from 2 to 10 hours away), and dangerous driving conditions for over half the year.
Having lived in Germany for 15 years, in an area with the typically “good” mass transit associated with this country, I’d have to say that mass transit good enough to get people out of their cars is just plain impossible for most of the USA.
It takes a certain population density to make mass transit practical and self supporting. If the popluation density isn’t there, then you end up with higher costs per passenger mile and more pollution per passenger. Also, mass transit needs large numbers of people who travel the same route at the same time. If you have small numbers of people who need to use the system at a time other than the majority of people do, then the transit system will run at a loss if it tries to accommodate them.
Once you are switched over to using mass transit, your are dependant upon it. I used the busses and trains to commute to work (about 150Km round trip) each day for a year. I worked myself into a hole. There were days when the trains would be running late, and I would get into work an hour late or more through no fault of my own. I couldn’t just stay late to make it up, though. I normally took a train towards home that got me to the bus station before the second to last bus. If I stayed late at work, and the train home was late, then I risked missing the last bus and having to either walk the last 15Km, or calling my father in law to come and get me - and then the rat German Telekom took out the telephone booth at the train station so that I first had a good 2 Km walk to the nearest phone booth. I ended up having to trade vacation days for missed work time - and that sucks. It wouldn’t have been possible for them to run a later bus, since the last one was already running at around eight PM - nobody travels around at that time and on a normal day there would be no need of it.
In the US, you are in the position of having low population density and long travel times - and that is a bad combination. Any screwup in the schedule will throw things completely out of kilter and make a route practically useless.
I’m a firm advocate of retesting every ten years,with training as necessary. And I think that ALL new drivers should have mandatory professional training. None of this two-tier taught by my dad so I have a temporary license for a longer time crap.
And I just went though retraining and testing myself last year when I got my motorcycle license, so at least I’m practicing what I preach.
I’ve been told that in the Vancouver region of BC there are many drivers on the road who never even took a driving test. They went to driving schools that guaranteed a pass on any exams, and never took exams, or had someone who looks like them take an exam…
Most of the bad drivers I see on any given day in Vancouver lack basic skills-- they don’t look left before changing lanes, let alone shoulder check; they drive forward on a yellow light even when there is no room to proceed (thus creating gridlock); they REVERSE in traffic FREQUENTLY, whenever they go over the stop line at a light, or they miss a turn.
As for public transit-- most of the US and Canada has the necessary population density, I’d wager.
Huh ? The state of New Jersey, one of the densest states in the country, doesn’t have high enough population density for comprehensive train service throughout the state (Most of the Northern and Eastern Portion has train service to NYC, but trying to get between towns in NJ can be nearly impossible) - and most of the USA is much much much less dense than that.
Then there is the problem that you’ve got to be able to walk to the public transportation system access points to be able to completely do away with cars- try doing that in places like Wyoming, or even in rural pennsylvania, where the next house is barely within walking distance.
I guess the system we would have to look at is the School Bus system- even with a population that has no cars, and are all headed to the same fairly local place, the bus ride usually takes much longer than having a car. I think about having something like that for the town of 1000 I grew up in, in Pennsylvania- how are you going to run a public transportation system when the next town is 10 miles away, and the population is going to work over a 4 hour period to places 30+ miles away in every compass direction ?
And as for the OP, I think stricter testing is a waste of time and money in states with required insurance.
In my experiences driving a passenger vehicle and a commercial vehicle, I think the roads could be made a lot safer by doing two simple things.
Require CDL’s (commercial drivers licenses) for anyone driving anything larger than an SUV. Joe Public in his 30’ Winnebego, towing his SUV, has no special training or instruction on driving a vehicle that large and unwieldy and heavy, and yet can do so freely. I have no cite available for accidents involving or caused by these vehicle, but in my experience, some training beforehand would eliminate a lot of potential accidents. They are not cars and should not be driven as if they were.
Test the elderly and the known seeing impaired more regularly.
I’d also put forth that the legal driving age should be increased. I’d wager that percentage-wise, more accidents are caused by younger drivers than older, though that may be an experience issue rather than an age issue. All I know is that when I was 17, I was a maniac, whereas by 21, I was more controlled and respectful.
With you here, maybe 80 mi/hr rather than 75 km/hr, but I’m from MI and thus have a different view of how cars ‘should’ be used. (Every man woman and child should have one and use it at or above 90 mph) I’m also a Chem Eng student wanting to be involved with alternative fuels, so you’ve hit several of my biases at once.
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Several issues with all of these. Anything that mucks with how you control your car has the ability to prevent the driver from controlling the car in a crises. Roads themselves curve and having to signal for every turn in teh road would be very confusing, not to mention having to remember to signal before swerving to avoid an accident.
Cell phones are not just used by the driver. I do have my cellphone in my car with me. I make my passegners answer/use it if needed. Also, if the car breaks in a bad area I’d much rather be able to lock the doors and call for help than have to wander far enough away from my car for my phone to work.
Proximity sensors are an interesting idea. I’m not too fond of the idea that someone can cut me off and that my car will scream at me for it. Or that someone ahead of me can stop unexpectedly and my car will scream at me while I’m already full of adrenaline trying to avoid hitting them. But I am very picky about the space around my car, so the adrenaline surge when someone is close to me is immediate.
Alcohol sensors. I don’t drink. My family doesn’t drink. I would find it hugely annoying to have to explain that to my car every time I wanted it to move. Currently, its possible to hook them to the cars of peopel who have been caught for drunk driving. I think that is about right. Otherwise, you are punishing everyone for the idiocy of the few. that and after the car has been blown and started, who’s to say who actually drives?
Lane changing movements, again, what’s the alarm going to accomplish? People driving erratically are doing so on purpose, they know it. People who have a legit reason to be moving back and forth rapidly (the street my house is set on is long and curvy, depending on the senor, I could see driving home setting off such an alarm every time.) will get annoyed.
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Agree with you here. Also more standard training. A friend of mine got her license after never having driven on the freeway. (very Northern MI) Her first experiance was with me, before I had my license. There’s a scene in the movie Clueless that was similar. Not something I want to repeat. No one was hurt, but it was the grace of God that made it so.
I also don’t think raising the age would do much of anything, just increase the most dangerous age of drivers from 16-17 to 21-22. Its a skill that takes practice, the newbies are always going to be the worst at it. Try to train them as best we can, and that will limit problems.
I’ve never lived in a place that does not require insurance and, certainly in my home town, there are plenty of people who drive like they don’t care. I don’t think worrying about keeping your insurance rate down has any deterrent effect on drivers. If anything, it has the opposite effect – “Aww, who cares if I get in an accident; my insurance will cover it.”
Again, I think stricter testing would force people to be more aware of their driving and weed out the really crappy ones. That would more than justify the cost.
Things are different here. I’m in NJ, USA, which has one of the highest insurance rates anywhere, even for drivers with no accidents or tickets. If you get into an accident that is your fault your insurance rates will definitely go up. Sometimes WAY up.
I’d go one farther and require a special license for an SUV. Or any vehicle over some specified dimensions and/or weight. Some of those are so much bigger than a normal car that they just have to require different driving skills.
I’m a bit of a reactionary when talking about driving laws and habits. Many people think this is extreme, but I disagree.
Our Monday local paper reported that 147 people in my state died in motor vehicle accidents in 2002. The same issue reported that 27 people died from firearms in 2002. While I do live in a rural state, I have to imagine that those totals would increase respective to each other as the population rose. Hence, my deduction is that automobile accidents kill more people every year than guns. Ergo, I believe that motor vehicle laws should be more strict than gun laws.
I believe that if a person should get three driving infractions over the course of his life, he should lose his license…forever.
If the laws were that strict, we sure would be less apt to break them, wouldn’t we?
I also believe that driver’s education should be part of every public high school’s curriculum. I’m not talking about the half semester joke of a class I took in eighth grade, either. I’m talking about a hands-on course where everyone studies the same material and learns to drive different sorts of vehicle. For instance, I find it ridiculous that my mother has had her license for fifty years and she doesn’t know how to drive a stick shift. Once upon a time, she was forced to drive my little four-speed in an emergency situation. Once she got the vehicle moving, she puttered along in first gear for five miles en route to the hospital. She had to stop once at a stoplight, and it took her a full five minutes to get the thing moving again. It would have been safer for me to drive in my poor state than it was for her.
As for me? I’ll never buy a car without a manual transmission. If anyone can’t drive it, he shouldn’t have his license. I believe they are much safer (I’d like to see some statistics) as I tend to be able to better keep track of my speed if I am forced to keep track of my engine’s RPM.
That’s interesting, but what precentage of the UK gets severe weather for months on end? IMO an unreasonable precentage of the US is plagued by snow and ice for 4-6 months of the year(except the local weather idjits think that it’ll snow through June this year. Joy!)… The winter road fatalities have got to be much higher in snow stricken states than down south…
I’d just like to say. I should have never been allowed to get my license when I did. I was a horrid driver. It wasn’t until 2 months after I got my license did I feel I was a good enough driver to actually have my license.
In Minnesota, we had to take 30 hours of classroom driver’s ed and pass the written test before we ever got behind the wheel. This, IMO, was the wrong way to go about it. I know that there were things in that class that I did not fully understand because I had never driven before. I had no frame of reference for the rules. The behind-the wheel lessons focused on learning to control the vehicle. There wasn’t an incentive to review the rules, since I’d passed the written test already. I ended up failing the driving test because I broke some of those rules. For example, on a two-lane highway, I stayed in the middle of the lane. Apparently, I was supposed to know that the lane was supposed to be separated into two invisible lanes–at a stop light, for example, stay towards the center if you are going straight or turning left, and leave the right side of the road open for those who are turning right. Maybe this was covered in class, but I don’t remember it, and I don’t think I really would have understood at the time.
I think that older drivers are better because they have more experience. If you start driving at 21, you’re going to suck just as much as a 16-year-old. I didn’t have a car in high school and college, and I didn’t consider myself a very good driver, even though I had my license and a clean driving record. Driving, especially on freeways, made me very nervous. Once I got married and started using my husband’s car very frequently, that changed. I got the experience necessary to get over being nervous–first on city streets, and later on the freeway. I don’t know how you are going to mandate that sort of experience before getting a license–I wouldn’t have had a chance to drive that much had I not already had a license, and I probably would never have been able to get over my nerves enough to pass a driving test involving freeways, etc. I might not even have a driver’s license today, which would severely impact where I could live and work.
I think retesting would be a good idea, though, because it would encourage people to learn those rules that they didn’t quite get at 16 (four-way stops, for example. I’m convinced that nobody learned those properly!) However, it could be seen as a waste of time and money–most experienced drivers would pass, after all, and I can’t see testing eliminating most bad habits. Enforcement would be better.
