Driver's licenses without road test

[ValidEmotions]

Road tests are supposed to be unbiased/impartial opportunities for someone else to assess the new driver's abilities. There are too many familial "instructors" that will teach their children (or another new driver) the wrong things about the road because of personal biases. It's as easy to see/understand because there are so many jerks on the road who shouldn't be behind a wheel, but are. Referring back to my own mentioned test experiences, my dad taught me several bad "tips" about driving/the road that actually aren't okay to do and that showed when I failed my first test.

[catstaff]

2 hours ago, ValidEmotions said:

@olympe you're talking about school zones. The USA has them in the states at 15 mph. Yes it's slow, but it's temporary. Schools have so much traffic in the morning and in the afternoon. During the day, it's not uncommon for older kids to step outside during lunch breaks or during a free period (aka no scheduled class for an hour). The reduced speed is to keep the children and their parents and teachers safe from being hit by a car moving much faster. 

For one thing, my dad only needed to drive some 25-30 miles per hour for a kid on a bike to go through his windshield decades ago. 

 

Honestly, the "inconvenience" of you having to drive slower than you want to be able to comes second to making sure people don't get hurt.

 

As it stands, my state had a serious string of hit-and-runs at a few different schools because some adults weren't following traffic laws and slowing down.

 

Same thing in the residential areas/roads. There are so many people likely to be around and outside at any given time. Small children have a bad habit of running out into the streets. USA has it at 25 miles per hour in such areas but too many people still like to drive too fast, often around blind corners, and put people at serious risk.

 

I don't think anyone will argue that it's safer for pedestrians to have slower speed limits near schools, etc.

 

However, I have to agree with Astreya that when you're trying to stay at 15-20 mph (so that would be 30 kph and under, metric users?) you're spending as much time checking the speedometer to make sure you're staying under the limit as you are actually paying attention to the road, traffic, and pedestrians.

 

Very few people can tell what speed they're traveling at without looking at the speedometer or having one of those radar camera/sign thingies around that clock your speed and post it on the sign. I know I've been tagged by those before - usually there's a sign before you get to them, letting you know you're coming to a reduced speed zone - and I've slowed down and I think I'm doing close to 30 mph and yet according to the sign, I'm still doing 45+. (That particular spot, the road is mostly 55 mph limit, slowed to 30 mph as you come up on a tricky intersection.)

 

Another speed perception vs. reality, I remember as a kid, a storm knocked out the power on our block and so we were all running late getting ready for school the next day. We're all crammed into the car and being anxious to get there before the bell, and one of the kids told the carpool mom something along the lines of, "There's no cops around, don't worry about doing the speed limit so we're not late!" Carpool mom promptly checked her speedometer and dropped her speed, telling the kid, "I'm already speeding, this is how fast the speed limit is. We'll get there when we get there."

 

Edited to add, I'm not saying there shouldn't be low speed limits near schools and such, just saying we need to figure out some better way of helping drivers stay that slow without needing to take their eyes off the road every 10 seconds.

Edited May 10, 2020 by catstaff

[ValidEmotions]

7 minutes ago, catstaff said:

However, I have to agree with Astreya that when you're trying to stay at 15-20 mph (so that would be 30 kph and under, metric users?) you're spending as much time checking the speedometer to make sure you're staying under the limit as you are actually paying attention to the road, traffic, and pedestrians.

 

You can actually control this with your gear shift. Even if you have an automatic. Manual shifts are already a given. Automatics almost always have a 1 and 2, sometimes 3rd gear beneath D(rive). The lower gears, especially the first gear, are for slower speeds and prevent your car from getting too fast. In USA, first gear is almost exclusively capped at 10-15 mph and 2nd gear caps at about 25-30 mph. You don't have to watch your speedometer, only feel/listen to your car and pay attention to how much pressure you're using on the gas pedal.

 

And you should always be checking your speed anyways, even if you're on the highway doing 65-80 mph. 

Edited May 10, 2020 by ValidEmotions

[KrazyKarp]

26 minutes ago, ValidEmotions said:

Road tests are supposed to be unbiased/impartial opportunities for someone else to assess the new driver's abilities. There are too many familial "instructors" that will teach their children (or another new driver) the wrong things about the road because of personal biases. It's as easy to see/understand because there are so many jerks on the road who shouldn't be behind a wheel, but are. Referring back to my own mentioned test experiences, my dad taught me several bad "tips" about driving/the road that actually aren't okay to do and that showed when I failed my first test.

Ah, I suppose it depends on where you live. In MD we need to do at least 6 hours of driving with an instructor from a driving school, who at the end of each 2 hour drive assesses our readiness to take the road test at the MVA. We do this with the same instructors that teach the classroom courses we take on driving, which was painful to sit through, but alas, a necessity for us all. So even if a family member were to teach bad habits, the instructor in the 6 hours of driving would eliminate those - otherwise, the student wouldn't even get the go-ahead to take the road test. I'm not sure what the process is in Georgia.

 

Also, the fact that there's still plenty of jerks on the road, who all indeed had to pass the road test, just proves my point. Though some of them are older, and only had to drive around a parking lot to pass their test. But I'm sure not all bad drivers out there fit into that category. In my case, I was ready to drive, but I failed my road test because we take our road tests with complete strangers in the car. That was quite unsettling to me, I made mistakes that I knew I wouldn't ordinarily make.

 

Just an edit as clarification, the point I've been trying to make is that yes, everyone should take a road test. But also, it's very important to keep in mind that passing a road test does not always equal being a good driver, and failing the road test does not always equal being a bad driver.

Edited May 10, 2020 by KrazyKarp

[catstaff]

8 minutes ago, ValidEmotions said:

You can actually control this with your gear shift. Even if you have an automatic. Manual shifts are already a given. Automatics almost always have a 1 and 2, sometimes 3rd gear beneath D(rive). The lower gears, especially the first gear, are for slower speeds and prevent your car from getting too fast. In USA, first gear is almost exclusively capped at 10-15 mph and 2nd gear caps at about 25-30 mph. You don't have to watch your speedometer, only feel/listen to your car and pay attention to how much pressure you're using on the gas pedal.

 

Maybe. I've never driven an automatic that had any gear cap out at 30 mph, even in low. My current car's shifter shows Park, Reverse, Neutral, and Drive, with + and - buttons next to the D with no indication of whether there is one or two low gears. Not to mention how easy it would be to hit the wrong button if you're not looking down at it.

Also, if you're slowing down for a school zone, you're probably not on the gas at all. I know I'm generally riding the brakes when I go through one, because my car doesn't slow down all that quickly if I just take my foot off the gas, especially if I'm going downhill.

 

I'd either like to see more of the radar signs used on the approach to school zones, or work on the smart-car technology to maybe combine cruise control with something like Alexa or Siri, where you could tell your car, "Speed zone approaching; slow to XX mph." and the car will do so and maintain that speed until you tell it to give you control back again. I mean, they've got backup cameras that will hit the brakes if they see something behind you these days, so why not something like that?

[Fuzzbucket]

Road tests are supposed to be taken with a stranger as examiner. If that throws you - then so will a lot of driving situations.

 

As to parents though - if I had take ANY notice of what my father said when he took me out a couple of times.... I'd have failed for SURE.

 

Also, times change. When he got his licence there were very few cars on the road. By the time he died - it all scared him half to death - the same for my father -in-law. No-one had taught them how to cope with the levels of traffic today not to mention that many rules had changed. 

 

ETA even in first gear (I drive a stick shift) I can easily get above 20. But you do get a feel for it. Of course, if you determinedly drive above the limit, that won't work, but these days I almost never catch myself over the limit in 20 zones. You CAN get a thing you can put on the dash which alerts you to speed violations, though. My grandson has one.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Fuzzbucket

[ValidEmotions]

@KrazyKarp I live in Nevada. 8 years ago, the requirement was 40 hours in formal classes (be they in person or online), passing a written test, and then logging 60 hours of behind-the-wheel practice/experience with someone over 21 with at least 1 year's driving legally. 10 of those 60 hours had to be completed at night. Then you could finally take the driver's test.

With those 60 hours of driving, 6 hours with an impartial instructor would definitely not break a habit formed by a parent "who knows better because I've been driving for decades already".

 

I hated having a stranger in my car, too. I was completely anxious being alone with a man I didn't know. 

 

@catstaff Those +- symbols is your manual gear shifting. You have the ability to have much more control over your gear shifts than most other automatic drivers because you can shift from gear 1 all the way up to 5 or 6. (You can look up information about how many gears your specific car was built with, either in the user's manual or online.) I advocate for you to spend time practicing with manually shifting gears. Slowing down at stop lights (and subsequently speeding up at the green) is a good place to practice down and up shifting. Same with hills. Listen to your car (have the radio off) and pay attention to when you start hearing a bit of a change in its pitch. That's a good time to shift. Your RPM meter will also help you determine when the change gears.

Automatics are automatics because they shift the gears for you once they reach a certain speed/RPM range; you most often won't notice the change unless you focus on the sound of your car.

 

Shifting gears is important. The car won't stop accelerating if you stick in a lower gear, but your transmission will most definitely not be happy and you can cause some serious damage to your car by not shifting up. But, being in a lower gear makes accelerating to a higher speed (after the threshold you should shift at) more sluggish.

Edited May 10, 2020 by ValidEmotions

[catstaff]

16 minutes ago, KrazyKarp said:

Ah, I suppose it depends on where you live. In MD we need to do at least 6 hours of driving with an instructor from a driving school, who at the end of each 2 hour drive assesses our readiness to take the road test at the MVA. We do this with the same instructors that teach the classroom courses we take on driving, which was painful to sit through, but alas, a necessity for us all. So even if a family member were to teach bad habits, the instructor in the 6 hours of driving would eliminate those - otherwise, the student wouldn't even get the go-ahead to take the road test. I'm not sure what the process is in Georgia.

 

Also, the fact that there's still plenty of jerks on the road, who all indeed had to pass the road test, just proves my point. Though some of them are older, and only had to drive around a parking lot to pass their test. But I'm sure not all bad drivers out there fit into that category. In my case, I was ready to drive, but I failed my road test because we take our road tests with complete strangers in the car. That was quite unsettling to me, I made mistakes that I knew I wouldn't ordinarily make.

 

And in the opposite direction, sometimes the kids are better off with a stranger in the car than with a parent anyway. My dad was an okay person to drive with, back when I was learning, but my mom would screech and act all panicky to the point that I wanted to yell at her to just shut up and let me concentrate on my driving. Now I'll grant that I have depth perception issues that to this day mean I don't always notice how quickly I'm coming up on a car in front of me and then have to hit the brakes a little harder than I'd prefer. Never hit anything, though. Still, my school driving instructor and the person grading my road test were nice, calm people to drive with, so I did better with them because they weren't freaking out over every little mistake. Pointing it out, yes, but not freaking out.

 

Edited to add, @ValidEmotions my car is an automatic. Bought used, though, and I don't have an instruction manual. I used to drive a stick, and yes, you can hear the transmission sounds changing with speed and shifts. I can hear it with the current car, too, but I still can't go by ear when I'm trying to slow from 40 mph down to 25 or under.

Edited May 10, 2020 by catstaff

[ValidEmotions]

8 minutes ago, catstaff said:

I still can't go by ear when I'm trying to slow from 40 mph down to 25 or under.

That's when you rely on your knowledge of what speeds you generally shift up to determine when you should shift down; the thresholds are the same or very near similar. 

[Astreya]

@ValidEmotions

Well, the BMW I usually drive can theoretically go up to 50km/h in the first gear. In Germany you will not drive any gear up to the maximum, though, as you are schooled to drive in a way that minimises fuel consumption. Thus I would always drive in the 3rd gear if I want to go 30km/h, while for 50km/h the 4th gear is the one to use. 

 

And by the way, I was curious and looked up the number of road fatalities in some countries, and I got the following numbers:

 

Road fatalities per 100 000 inhabitants per year:

Germany: 4.1
France: 5.5
Italy: 5.6
Spain: 4.1
Norway: 2.1
UK: 3.1
USA: 12.4
Japan: 4.1

 

Kudos to the UK, by the way - always driving on the wrong side of the street and still having a pretty good result! (And yes, I am aware that every one death is one too many as they are not statistics, but these people were living beings.)

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Astreya

[ValidEmotions]

@Astreya Theoretically. Still not good for the car. I know that the cars I have personally driven were 0% happy with me trying to hit 18 mph while in 1st gear, so much so that the car refused to accelerate much until I shifted into second. I would shift from 2nd to 3rd at about 25 mph. While in 3rd gear, my car would go to 40mph, shift again on its own, and then I could shift to Drive at around 50-55 mph (assuming I started in 1st rather than staying in D from the beginning). However, different cars have slight variances for otherwise similar functions. 

 

Wrong side of the street? Not sure what that's alluding to, Astreya.

[Astreya]

@ValidEmotions

In the UK you drive on the left side, while in most other countries you drive on the right side of the road. I can tell you it was quite a feat for me trying to drive in the UK when I visited some friends there! All your automatisms are geared for right hand traffic, particular where you look first. Plus the steering wheel of UK cars is on the other side, of course. When you drive a German car there, you are always on the side of the pavement. But when I tried to drive the UK car of my friends, this was just as weird as the stick was totally on the wrong side, too.

 

And yeah, I usually get out of the first gear right when the car begins to move. It's much more quiet that way

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Astreya

[ValidEmotions]

Oh. I'm aware UK drives on the left side. But ha. That isn't the "wrong" side of the street as much as driving on the right isn't the "correct" side. And, if I recall, UK isn't the only one driving on the left. There's also historical purpose for that decision to be on the left side. 

But, yes, it takes a lot to remember what's ingrained and separate it from what you need to actually follow. 

[Astreya]

Well, right-hand traffic does have the majority, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic :P

 

[ValidEmotions]

And? The white population has a majority of power in the USA, doesn't mean they're automatically "correct" 🙄  It just means the decision for left or right hand traffic is more arbitrary as long as everyone follows the same law in their area.

 

Anyways, I went on about the gear shifting because it's easy to understand that not a lot of people/kids are being taught how to shift gears as automatics have grown significantly more popular than manual stick shifts. On one hand, I get it--I don't shift gears all that often, either. But it does help the car in various situations if you utilize manual gear shifts and I've wondered if it would be reasonable for it to be part of a driver's test. I mean, it can help you if you have to slow the car down/stop abruptly in an emergency.

Edited May 10, 2020 by ValidEmotions

[Fuzzbucket]

Let's not get into which is the "right" side of the road - it really isn't relevant and doesn't matter a bit. (Except for the day - in the UK - that I asked my father to please drive on the right side of the road and he said - with ghastly truth - that he WAS driving on the right side....)

 

Anyone who travels with a car knows they may have to make allowances. I'm dual resident in the UK and Canada; I drive a RHD car in the UK and an LHD one in Canada - that makes it easy; the driver is always in the centre of the road, kinda. I'm like the German girl in that excellent video.

 

But there are actually a lot of countries which drive on the left - Australia, Japan,  much of Africa, India. It's not quite such a "tiny minority" thing.

[olympe]

1 hour ago, Astreya said:

Well, the BMW I usually drive can theoretically go up to 50km/h in the first gear. In Germany you will not drive any gear up to the maximum, though, as you are schooled to drive in a way that minimises fuel consumption. Thus I would always drive in the 3rd gear if I want to go 30km/h, while for 50km/h the 4th gear is the one to use. 

I think that's about the area where you can shift gears. However, when I'm in an area with 30 km/h speed limit, I prefer the 2nd gear because it gets really loud if I get above the limit. It's like my personal alarm, so to speak.  Because my inner speedometer is pretty good at telling what 50 km/h is, but has a hard time to tell where 30 is. And I don't want to spend more time checking my speed than checking my surroundings.

 

I also prefer 3rd gear for driving downhill at 50 km/h because first, the gear doesn't matter when you don't need to accelerate at all, and 2nd you don't accelerate quite as quickly due to driving downhill as with the 4th gear.

 

ETA: I'm honestly surprised that there's official right-hand traffic on Antarctica. Who would've guessed? (Definitely not me.)

Edited May 10, 2020 by olympe

[Awdz]

14 hours ago, catstaff said:

 

I don't think anyone will argue that it's safer for pedestrians to have slower speed limits near schools, etc.

 

However, I have to agree with Astreya that when you're trying to stay at 15-20 mph (so that would be 30 kph and under, metric users?) you're spending as much time checking the speedometer to make sure you're staying under the limit as you are actually paying attention to the road, traffic, and pedestrians.

 

Very few people can tell what speed they're traveling at without looking at the speedometer or having one of those radar camera/sign thingies around that clock your speed and post it on the sign. I know I've been tagged by those before - usually there's a sign before you get to them, letting you know you're coming to a reduced speed zone - and I've slowed down and I think I'm doing close to 30 mph and yet according to the sign, I'm still doing 45+. (That particular spot, the road is mostly 55 mph limit, slowed to 30 mph as you come up on a tricky intersection.)

 

Another speed perception vs. reality, I remember as a kid, a storm knocked out the power on our block and so we were all running late getting ready for school the next day. We're all crammed into the car and being anxious to get there before the bell, and one of the kids told the carpool mom something along the lines of, "There's no cops around, don't worry about doing the speed limit so we're not late!" Carpool mom promptly checked her speedometer and dropped her speed, telling the kid, "I'm already speeding, this is how fast the speed limit is. We'll get there when we get there."

 

Edited to add, I'm not saying there shouldn't be low speed limits near schools and such, just saying we need to figure out some better way of helping drivers stay that slow without needing to take their eyes off the road every 10 seconds.

 

My sister gave me a good tip for this - when you slow down, set cruise control at or just below the speed limit while you are proceeding through those areas, and then take your foot off the gas. Soooo much easier to stay at the right speed without looking!

Edited May 11, 2020 by Awdz Bodkins

[Fuzzbucket]

Assuming you have cruise control.

 

Also, in that kind of area you quite often have to slow down - even from 20 mph. Traffic lights. Pedestrian crossings. Alertness is the most important thing of all when driving. There are way more accidents involving loss of attention and of course falling asleep when cruise control is engaged (that's why it's also known as snooze control...)

[olympe]

I don't even know what cruise control is...

[Fuzzbucket]

I don't HAVE it in the UK, but I do know. (I have it in Canada I believe - bu I never use it.) Get to the speed you want, press a button on the steering wheel and the car will maintain that speed until either you hit the gas or you brake (and some FANCY ones can even cope with that.) But it's really best used on freeways and dual carriageways.

[Ruby Eyes]

31 minutes ago, olympe said:

I don't even know what cruise control is...

Tempomat.

[olympe]

Okay, that term I know. Sounds like a dangerous thing to have when you don't even need to hit the gas to keep your speed. Especially on longer journeys.

[Astreya]

I think there is a reason why the US seems to be pretty high on the traffic accident list when compared with many other countries.

 

I found a really cool graphical overview over 39 countries in this blog entry here:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by Astreya

[Awdz]

8 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Assuming you have cruise control.

 

Also, in that kind of area you quite often have to slow down - even from 20 mph. Traffic lights. Pedestrian crossings. Alertness is the most important thing of all when driving. There are way more accidents involving loss of attention and of course falling asleep when cruise control is engaged (that's why it's also known as snooze control...)

 

Well, of course. Usually the foot moves to hovering just over the brake pedal if there is any chance of cross traffic. But at least you can keep your eyes on the road without worrying about going too fast, which was the point.

 

And if someone is that tired, they should not be driving in the first place. Here's just one article on the subject, lots out there: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/best-cars-blog/2016/12/drowsy-driving-worse-than-drunk-driving