Speed Kills, every K over is a killer

[Keef]

Frankly, I think the vast majority of people driving might as well be landing a capsule on the moon. Screw the laws - give me a challenging multitasking, decision making and performance driving skill test and I'll pass it in a heartbeat. Those are the skills you need to drive on the road. Even now there is no skill training required for a license. These people can't even get the rules right, much less actually drive effectively.

 

[Chrunch Houston]

I got my license in Kentucky in 1981. I had a small 25 or so page booklet that I studied. I went and took a written test on my 16th birthday.

The only driving instruction I received was from my parents after I had my permit.

Thirty days after I got my permit, I took the driving test and got my license. It had absolutely no restrictions.

I cannot remember any of my friends ever going to any kind of driver education class, and all of us got our licenses right after our 16th birthdays.

 

[FoolKiller]

I got my license in Kentucky in 1981. I had a small 25 or so page booklet that I studied. I went and took a written test on my 16th birthday.

The only driving instruction I received was from my parents after I had my permit.

Thirty days after I got my permit, I took the driving test and got my license. It had absolutely no restrictions.

I cannot remember any of my friends ever going to any kind of driver education class, and all of us got our licenses right after our 16th birthdays.

They began requiring drivers ed in the late 90s, I believe. Now they've even graduated the permit and license process so that you aren't a fully licensed driver until you turn 18. Until then you have a provisional license that can be lost far more easily than an adult.

 

[Tesla]

In New South Wales, the earliest you can get your license is 16. That's a 10 minute test if you have a basic understanding of road rules, then it's required that you log 120 hours with at least 20 night hours - all with a fully licensed driver in the car with you. Even once you've done that, you can't get your provisional license until you've had it for a full year, which you have to take a practical test for.

Because of the way it's done, most people I know only do half of those hours, and forge the rest. All it requires is the signature of a fully licensed driver to mark it off. Not only that, but after the age of 25 you can get the provisional license without a practical test - meaning you can have no experience in a car but be driving by yourself so long as you studied the test.

 

[Chrunch Houston]

They began requiring drivers ed in the late 90s, I believe. Now they've even graduated the permit and license process so that you aren't a fully licensed driver until you turn 18. Until then you have a provisional license that can be lost far more easily than an adult.

I was scared to death to drive right after I got my license. A scary narrow curvy busy two lane road was the only way out of my subdivision. My parents made me go to the store by myself to buy stuff.

It took me a while, but I did get used to it.

 

[homeforsummer]

Since we're describing how our tests work here, here's ours:

You apply for a provisional license. You need to be 17, but you can apply proactively so you're able to start driving as soon as your 17th birthday. You can start doing lessons (or simplified, driving on the road with a passenger over 21 and L-plates displayed on the car) straight away.

You can take as many or few lessons as you want, but before taking a practical test you need to take the theory test. This takes the form of a multiple-choice test, and a video-based hazard perception test. The latter came in late 2002 - the day after I took my theory test without the hazard perception test

If you pass your theory (I can't remember the pass mark, but it's reasonably high - and around a third of people fail it) you're then free to take your practical test. The pass rate for this is even lower - Wikipedia suggests only around 43% of people pass.

What's amazing is how awful some of the people who've passed are - god knows what it'd be like if the test was any easier.

On a side note, my USA trip last month revealed that US and UK drivers are crap in slightly different ways. In the US, inattentiveness seems to be a major problem - people not concentrating, talking on cellphones etc. Saw several swerving-related incidents as people had presumably woken up to realise they were about to have an accident.

In the UK, it's an entitlement problem. One rule for them, another for everyone else. Leads to lanes backing up on the motorway, people speeding past schools because they think the rules don't apply to them, tailgating, cutting up other traffic etc. One person acts selfishly and ruins the roads for everyone else.

I've often believed that road behaviour is echoed in supermarkets with trolleys.

I reckon this is actually pretty close. In the US, someone will accidentally crash their trolley into yours in Wal-Mart as they weren't looking, but generally they'll apologise. In the UK, people just push past without asking, sit in the middle of an aisle without thinking how people may get past etc. It's literally driving characteristics boiled down into a different environment.

 

[White & Nerdy]

AK has a pretty simple solution.

-At 14 or 15 (I think the former), you can get a learner's permit.

-Once you've had the permit for 6 months or a year (I forgot which), have reached the age of 16, and passed some fairly easy driving-time requirements, you can go on to apply for a driver's license, guarded by a fairly basic road test.

-If you pass, that gets you your provisional license, which means you can't drive between 1AM and 5AM unless it has to do with work, and you can't carry any passengers under 25 unless they're related to you.

-After 6 months or when you turn 18, you can get a full license.

-You must renew your license, taking an alcohol awareness test in the process, within 90 days of your 21st birthday.

I've often believed that road behaviour is echoed in supermarkets with trolleys.
I reckon this is actually pretty close. In the US, someone will accidentally crash their trolley into yours in Wal-Mart as they weren't looking, but generally they'll apologise. In the UK, people just push past without asking, sit in the middle of an aisle without thinking how people may get past etc. It's literally driving characteristics boiled down into a different environment.

Then my guess is all the store customers who park their carts in the middle of aisles (often in bottleneck areas) while talking, or walking slowly, or selecting a product, are out of state tourists in motorhomes. Or environmentalists with Subaru Foresters.

 

[homeforsummer]

Then my guess is all the store customers who park their carts in the middle of aisles (often in bottleneck areas) while talking, or walking slowly, or selecting a product, are out of state tourists in motorhomes.

Didn't really experience that over there. Occasionally someone with an impressively enormous bottom would be getting in everyone's way, but then that could happen anywhere. Generally people just wandered around with a look of oblivion.

Or environmentalists with Subaru Foresters.

And you were doing so well.

What kind of environmentalist drives a car that struggles to get into the mid-20s for economy? Or did you mean to type hipsters/Coloradians?

 

[White & Nerdy]

And you were doing so well.

What kind of environmentalist drives a car that struggles to get into the mid-20s for economy? Or did you mean to type hipsters/Coloradians?

The Alaska kind, apparently. Maybe it's just confirmation bias, but it seems to me slow drivers sometimes tend to show up in Subaru Foresters, or old Subaru wagons. One of the slowest drivers I was ever stuck behind was a rusted old Subie wagon with a big fluffy dog in the back, covered in "coexist" and "love your mother the earth" bumper stickers. So maybe that experience causes all future slow drivers in Subarus to stick out in my mind.

I will say, though, that a slow-moving Forester almost caused me to return late from lunch one day.

 

[Famine]

I've often believed that road behaviour is echoed in supermarkets with trolleys.

Not just supermarkets and trollies (US: carts), but supermarkets and walking, shopping and walking, getting on and off trains and walking and just walking.

They amble along aimlessly, then spot something that catches their eye, stop on the spot without any warning and then veer off in a random direction. They abandon their trollies like they park - it's just where it happens to stop with no heed paid to positioning or obstruction. Last week I had a woman swing her basket into my trolley - I was behind her, not moving and not in the way at the time - and then glare at me like it was somehow my fault she was a braindead, inattentive sack of misappropriated carbon.

And if you've ever tried getting off a Tube train during rush "hour"... whew. No consideration, no mind for organisation and order, just MY JOURNEY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE AND I MUST BE FIRST TO MOVE. And the numbnuts who cram their way onto the train, expecting somehow to be able to get on more expediently when there's a rush of people off it... Mind you, I experienced this in France too this year, when some asshole woman tried to barge her way on between me and my daughter. I may have shouted at her. And then offered my seat to an elderly lady right in front of her stupid ignorant face.