Learning to drive

[rrich]

Mick,
You are one that probably has their brake pads / shoes replaced every 125,000 Km.

[Mr Brush]

Just goes to show that you can't teach spatial awareness... It bugs me no end when I'm stuck 2 cars behind a car turning right and there's enough space for a truck to go around on the left but the driver in front just has no idea how big their car is, so all 5 people behind have to wait

Couldn't agree more. However, it doesn't help that most people turning right just stop bang slap in the middle of their lane, indicator on, with no attempt to position themselves as far to the right of their lane as possible. If they did this, even the hopeless drivers who need a space twice the width of their car should be able to pass on the left and avoid blocking the entire street. Do they still teach this kind of "common sense"?? My other pet peeve in our area (often foggy), is people driving a road-coloured car in pea soup fog with no lights on at all......presumably they don't teach drivers these days that lights are for TWO equally important things, (1) to see where you're going, and (2) to help others see you. Likewise the function of a slip road - to allow vehicles to get up to the speed of cars on the road they are joining (e.g. 110km/h freeway), and thereby merge smoothly. Try explaining that to the idiots who trundle down the slip road at 70km/h, almost come to a stop, indicate, then try to merge in front of a semi- doing 110km/h. .

[Chris Parks]

My pet peeves

People using an entry ramp and trying to merge at half the traffic speed instead of getting to the speed limit on the ramp and then merging. They are causing a huge potential accident and I was nearly involved in one a few years ago while familiarising a driver with a new truck we were bringing into the fleet and I subsequently refused to get into a truck with him driving.

I strike this one all the time, more annoying than anything else. I use cruise control every time I drive out of town, I gradually catch a car and pull out to overtake with no change of speed on my part and the car I am overtaking gradually increases speed, I drop back into the lane behind that car and it slows down, rinse and repeat but the second time I just floor the throttle, get past, resume my set speed and the overtaken car slows down to the speed he was originally doing. Can someone explain in this behaviour in small words so I can understand it because I have not got a clue why it happens.

[crowie]

Just a silly thought.
Maybe before people are allow to have a car driving license, they should first have to gain a heavy vehicle licence then progress to a motorcycle licence then sit for a car licence.
Drivers might be a little more curious and traffic aware??

[Chesand]

My pet peeves

I strike this one all the time, more annoying than anything else. I use cruise control every time I drive out of town, I gradually catch a car and pull out to overtake with no change of speed on my part and the car I am overtaking gradually increases speed, I drop back into the lane behind that car and it slows down, rinse and repeat but the second time I just floor the throttle, get past, resume my set speed and the overtaken car slows down to the speed he was originally doing. Can someone explain in this behaviour in small words so I can understand it because I have not got a clue why it happens.

I use cruise control as you do and the actions you describe annoy the hell out of me as well.

[elanjacobs]

My other pet peeve in our area (often foggy), is people driving a road-coloured car in pea soup fog with no lights on at all

My pet peeve is the opposite: people with their foggies on in clear weather.

The front ones aren't so annoying (aside from making people look like idiots), but having the rears on is, IMO, quite a hazard; they're at least as bright as, if not brighter than, brake lights, so my ability to see everything else in the dark gets affected by having to stare at them and it's harder to tell when they actually are braking.

It's also illegal (and carries a fine from $50 to over $200, depending on what state), but no one cares about that. I reckon if the cops did a fog light blitz they'd fill the budget gap in a month.

[smidsy]

I've been on the road 32 years, the system in WA back then was you that could drive with an instructor at 16 & 9 months and drive with anyone who'd had a license 4 years once you turned 17.
I had 12 lessons with an instructor, got my car license on my 17th birthday and my semi license about 20 or 21 after about six lessons.
In 2011 in Queensland I got my bike license after one 1 hour lesson and the five hour Qride instructor assessment - it was my first time on a geared bike in 25 years and the first time I'd ever been legally on a bike on the road.
All my tests I thought were pathetically easy, when I mentioned this to the Qride instructor he told me that they deliberately make the test easy because they'd rather have bad licensed drivers than bad unlicensed drivers.

WE NEED TO MAKE DRIVING TESTS HARDER!
We spend billions of dollars educating and raising our children and then let them die on the roads through pathetically inadaquate driver training.
My sister migrated to Norway and my oldest neice is currently doing her driver training - over there it takes two years to get your license, you have to do a senior first aid course and you have to do a course teaching you how to deal with an accident while waiting for the cops and ambo's.

Maybe we should go the US way and make driver training part of the education curriculem???
But we have to do something to stop our children dying on the roads.

[Chris Parks]

You can make them as hard as you like but if the skills learned during that period are not practised then they are lost very quickly. If you learned to control a spin in a car at aged 17 and did not encounter a need for that skill until age 35 you would not have a hope in hell of remembering what to do. Perhaps with modern simulators there is a potential to educate drivers as pilots are periodically retrained but no one has begun that yet to my knowledge.

[Glider]

Mick, you are one that probably has their brake pads / shoes replaced every 125,000 Km.

Spot on, Rich! I've owned the ute for 12 years, done 110,000 kms in it and never needed new pads although doing most of the miles on long trips is very easy on the anchors especially when you drive a stick.

mick

[Glider]

WE NEED TO MAKE DRIVING TESTS HARDER!

But we have to do something to stop our children dying on the roads.

Sadly, it's not going to happen. Young drivers will continue to come unstuck because their brains are not fully developed. Females' brains are fully mature at around 23 and males' around 25. Kids should ace any practical driving test because their senses are acute and reflexes razor sharp. The occasional mad P platers I see on the road are very skilled but seriously dangerous. They make assumptions about roads and other drivers which are mostly correct but not always. That's when the damage happens. It's all about attitude.

When my children were in their mid to late teens we heard about a fatal accident nearby in our neighbourhood. When they wanted to go and see it, I forbade it. After a minute or so I changed my mind and gave permission. I reckoned it would do them good to see the results first hand and up close. It did and none of them has ever taken road safety lightly. It transpired that the fatality happened to be the son of a close friend from university days but not someone known to my children. At least some good came from this boy's tragedy.

mick

[rrich]

I have driven mostly all over the US. There are regional differences in driving styles. I won't get into that but there is something that I have noticed universally here in the US. I suspect that it is true there also.

There are 4 types of drivers, especially at peak traffic times.

Users - The bloke that will use all of the space in front of the car, especially as traffic slows.

Keepers - They were told in driver education (year 10 and 11) that they must keep space of X car lengths per every Y KPH.

Takers - They will take any space in a lane if they believe that it will gain them a millisecond. These are the worst for traffic as their car takes about the space of five cars on the road. One for the taker, one to two in front of the taker so they can speed up, one or two so that they can slip into the adjacent lane and two behind the car that they are cutting off for braking space.

Star Gazers - Also Aimers. They have no clue as to where they are, what the common courtesy rules are, what lane they are in or what exit they are supposed to get off at. These are the type that when stopped at a traffic light you want to walk up and knock on the window asking "What are you aiming at?" And regardless of the rude response your answer is, "I would just rather be somewhere else other than where you are aiming."

[AlexS]

Pretty much true here too, Rich. I must say though, that driving in peak hour LA freeway traffic wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Firstly, the signposting is excellent, especially when combined with GPS. I decided to try and drive like the locals - close to the car in front, and when you want to change lanes, just put the indicator on and go. It works, they will let you in.

[Boringgeoff]

Alex, indicator on and go is what I experienced in Sydney the first time I drove there in 1981. On our way back from NZ hired a car at Sydney airport to visit friends up in the Snowys. Prior to going a friend asked had I ever driven in Syd town, my answer NO he replied they're maniacs, they'll kill ya! Understandably I was nervous when we picked up the car and headed out but watching the traffic I decided that they indicated then moved. I tried it and it worked.... phew the relief. A week later back in Perth driving down a busy road I decided to do some Sydney lane changing, indicate, move, one fluid action.........you should have heard the horns blaring and the fist waving etc. Welcome home.
Cheers,
Geoff.

[KBs PensNmore]

I'd like to see young drivers stay on their P's till the age of 23, then do a driving test again with an assessor. By that time they will have instilled any of their bad habits, that hopefully the assessor will pick and make them do their licence again.
They tend to think that a P isn't a PRIVILAGE but a right to have.
I went for a drive with someone to deliver a trailer to Bordertown about 200kms away.
People were driving along at about 105, we have a 110 limit in SA, and we would overtake them. We were sitting on the limit, quickly coming up in the distance was a van doing about 80kph, and had to slow down as we were in a no passing section and had to wait till a passing lane was available to pass him. There was a B Double behind us, dunno how he got on, though I think I did hear his airhorns!!! Some of the cars were doing 100, till you went to overtake them, then they'd lift the speed to 110, this happened on several occasions. Fortunately we were in a 6.7 Litre Ford F250 which very quickly overtook them, and they'd slow back down to what ever they were comfortable at.
Is it arrogance that causes people to do such stupid things???
Kryn

[Chris Parks]

Alex, indicator on and go is what I experienced in Sydney the first time I drove there in 1981. On our way back from NZ hired a car at Sydney airport to visit friends up in the Snowys. Prior to going a friend asked had I ever driven in Syd town, my answer NO he replied they're maniacs, they'll kill ya! Understandably I was nervous when we picked up the car and headed out but watching the traffic I decided that they indicated then moved. I tried it and it worked.... phew the relief. A week later back in Perth driving down a busy road I decided to do some Sydney lane changing, indicate, move, one fluid action.........you should have heard the horns blaring and the fist waving etc. Welcome home.
Cheers,
Geoff.

Everyone gets used to their region or city and habits grow within that area. I went to live in Melbourne from Sydney and thought the locals were on a suicide mission until I got used to it.