Safe Speed Forums

This is a very interesting and challenging article by Steve Haley of Mind Driving fame on the issues surrounding driver training:

http://www.advanced-driving.co.uk/essen ... nsibility/

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I'm not sure I quite believe the article. I seem to drive perfectly safely when no-one is around, but when I have someone behind me, often too close, I get rushed into bad practice. I do things like taking roundabouts too fast, so I end up going round the roundabout in the wrong manner, and shoving everything in the car around.

Also I often end up coasting because I haven't been able to deal with the gear change in time in my haste to turn off a main road if there's an impatient car behind. Quite simply this is losing control of the car. Were the car going slow enough, I'd simply lift off the clutch.

Then the other day, I went in the outside lane to overtake some very slow traffic on the A12. Before I had a chance to pull back over again, I get undertaken, then when I do pull over, I have car approaching me quickly from behind so slam down on the gas. I don't even believe my car's speedo when it gets to 90mph...

So I think it's some of the older drivers on the road intimidating younger drivers to drive at their standards. In fact, my driving instructor told me she had great fun catching out drivers who treated her as a learner, assuming it was a learner in the car. Sadly I don't yet have the skills to do that.

I am not sure the article hit the nail on the head... but it did make me think..

We teach them how to drive slowly.
We teach them the rules and signs.
we tell them how park on a hill and spot a wet road.

Do we teach them good judgement,
How to drive at speed, ballance of a car
When a car needs service / repair


We teach them in an empty car, first thing they do is add 4 passengers and go on holliday
How many people have the slightest idea of the weight loading of thier car and where to put any heavy weight. I was most supprised when I worked ot that I was 20% over loaded with 5 people and NO luggage!

What else arn't we teaching them?

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Yes the core point is that we don't teach them "good judgement" and how to "think" properly about what's going on. Nicycle above illustrates it very well. This is the bit that's not working, and borne out by all the driver trainers I know. Some instructors do better than others, but overall this is the huge gap that's visible by seeing driving from the 'thinking' side rather than the 'physical' side. It's why Mind Driving and the SkillDriver project exist.

But also, and the subject of this article, it's in the way the adult world 'sets them up' for driving. That's vital to address in the way young people are taught if we expect to reduce their crash risk.

Steve

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www.skilldriver.org
driving skills you can live by

I think .. we fail badly in initial training. We do not address attitude. judgement or even [i]responsibility[i] properly We do not seem to be able to teach any road user to stay calm when faced with the twazak from hell either Just let them pass you. Safer in front than behind.

Here - they have less chance of getting aways with it Kodak county is not so clear cut though

It's no accident that we prosecute more for serious traffic offences.

NO .. we cannot make it zero as folk are basically idiots anywaty We try. We lecture. We carry on regardless in ridding the roads of right idiots ;popcorn:

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

on a mad brain storm...

Drivers who have serious blame worthy insurance claims are not offered training in exchange for a bit of thier no-claims bonus back....

The training could be focussed on the area of driving that was present in the accident. Ie motorway driving, town driving, parking etc.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Oh I agree

DIS in our patch tends to focus on all COAST values. We do try to keep it "relevant to all" as we cannot resource a "tailor made bespoke to the offence" - so we try to address all possible "what if" scenario. We try to give a bite sze induction into our own initial police training on the DIS here.


I cannot speak for other areas .. only that we do try our best here. I am sure other offering courses do try to help. These are the way forward even if the invites stick in throats But what do folk prefer . fine and insurance costs against a day's IAM equivalent and no need to tell the insurers

I think I know which I woulld choose in the situation and I would want "more value for my hard earned cash" even if this means swallowing a bit of pride - justified or complacent

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

The other problem is the vehicle most learn to drive in.
Driving examiners base their success on the number of passes and so choose a vehicle which is easy to drive in.
Once left to their own devices, drivers can end up in all sorts of vehicles, with all sorts of handling/visibility characteristics.
I learned in an Austin Maxi fitted with twin carbs, then a 1976 Ford Transit van. Consequently I have NEVER had a problem guaging how far I am from the kerb, or being taken completely unawares when the vehicle changes handling at speed or with a load! Parking a Fiesta is an absolute doddle when you are used to reverse parking a Transit van!

Finally, any novice learning to drive in Cumbria is spared the fraught experience of driving in a large city or even on a busy motorway if they choose not to travel that way.
The M25 and M40 are a world away! It's up to friends or family to see that they get that experience before they tackle it on their own - even if it is as a passenger!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Thanks for the welcome Ernest .

Relevant on this forum is that the origin of this article is a conversation I had with Paul Smith. But it took me a while to get it done...

Steve

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www.skilldriver.org
driving skills you can live by

On this side of the pond, the situation is even worse. Despite the fact that more and more states are contemplating 'Gradual Licensing' to younger new drivers, there is NO acknowledgement that most kids barely learn about the 'physical' aspects, and learn nothing about either the proper internal thought processes, or proper road etiquette and decorum. Except by a dwindling minority of parents, driving instruction in this country largely focuses on 'the rules'.

If the driving instruction industry and the government largely see driving as as economic activity which allows other economic activities, then the more fish in the sea, the better. Thus the urge to 'make the training and the test as easy as possible'.
I'm teaching my niece to drive in a car that measures over 5.5 metres long, 2 metres wide, and weighs over two metric tons.
It would be even better if it were a manual.

Here, only parents may teach their children to drive in Manhattan, or on the highway. Driving instruction firms are forbidden to do either, and can even be fined if caught with a prelicensed student in the driver's seat while in NYC or on a highway. The vast majority of newly licensed drivers still fear both, and many grown men and women don't drive in either simply due to fear, even despite years of experience otherwise.
Naturally, there is also a dwindling minority of drivers who drive in either environment with anything but accidental flashes of etiquette and decorum.

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

I've been learning to drive for a good 8 months now so I felt that I simply had to comment when I saw this article. The average Briton learning to drive spents about £1500 on the whole process. I have a long list of things I want to buy/do after I do the "Pass Plus" scheme which is a joke but it's extra experience and some insurance companies offer discounts if you have done it. I agree with what people say about judgement but that is something that must be practiced and cannot be taught. If you are unduely hesitant on a test more than twice (each instance counts as a minor) then you fail the test. This is down to an examiner's judgement about what constitutes undue hesitancy which can all be carried out to varying degrees; obviously resulting in instances of unfairness. I guess afterwards lots of drivers are subconsciously still trying to make accurate snap judgements about whether they can go or not at junctions and roundabouts, when they don't have an examiner sat next to them to tell them forcefully to "stop" or slam on the dual brake. When I eventually pass my test I will try and train myself to not go if I am not sure again, as I would have when I started learning. After pass plus I would like to look into advanced driving depending on the cost of it. If it is anything like actual learning to drive then hopefully I could ask my parents to chip in because I can't go through months and months of having no money like I did when I was learning the basic driving again. I would love to have advanced driving under my belt at my age to not only be safe but to beat the stereotypes as well

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

Pass Plus is an interesting one. I didn't do it as having finally passed my test I had no money left, I couldn't get a car either. I did, however, discover that the only insurers who give you a discount for Pass Plus are the ones that are rip offs anyway, the cheap insurers didn't seem to care either way so from a purely economic standpoint it just isn't worth it (well, unless you include the cost of crashing due to your inexperience)

My next driving experience was some 5 months later. The company I worked for decided that I was required to spend half a day on their other site in Coventry (my site was Liverpool). Company policy is that all employees with driving licences get to take a company pool car for inter-site travel.

Thanks guys, there I am, haven't driven in the 5 months since passing my test in a 1.0 Nissan Micra, suddenly finding myself in a diesel Vectra and faced with a trek down the M6. Even with zero experience I was aware of how bad the M6 was and really didn't look forward to this.

I eventually badgered them into letting me take the car the night before so that I could leave directly from home, drove it the long way home and got my mum to come out with me for a run down the M53 to give me some pointers.

Amazingly I didn't crash it, but I did manage to get stuck in a near stationary jam on the M6 (by which I mean a helpful chap let me move from L2 to L1 so that I could get into the services, I had a huge breakfast on expenses, faffed around for a bit, left the services and the same chap let me back into L1 from the on ramp). Then managed to get lost in Coventry, experience that bonkers ring road (seriously guys, the Germans flattened the city in the war and that's the best you can come up with) and eventually followed a bus that was going to the site in question. Got there just in time for the last 5 minutes or so of the meeting had a late lunch and returned to find someone had hit my car in the car park denting the rear door so it wouldn't open and ripping the trim off. Of course no bugger believed me on that one.


Sorry I've digressed a little, it's an extreme example but I guess what I'm trying to say is that perhaps the current method of "ok you know how to turn left and right and change hears, here's a ticket to go wherever the hell you like, try not to die" needs addressing, and that people do need to take some duty of care towards younger and inexperienced drivers.

Oh yeah, the icing on the cake, I got told off for taking the pool car on a non-work related trip (the run up the M53) in addition to damaging the car. They threatened to ban me from using company vehicles then seemed confused when I said I was absolutely fine with that.

I still hate Vectras.

If the population at large knew how to drive well enough to realize how bad the Saturn Aura sucks, they'd be able to realize a lot of other things too.

So, it's about the money, then. Ah, yes.

I've always suspected that it's cheaper on the one end, and more profitable on the other, if they license as many people as possible. More fish in the sea to bait and hook.

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

I think you've misunderstood slightly. Pass Plus is a government scheme, not an insurance industry one. From a road safety point of view it's probably a good idea, if only because the standard driving test includes no motorway driving, but passing it allows you onto the motorway.

Given the horror stories I've read about the standard of US driving tests in some states (including one guy who claimed that his test involved turning right out of the test centre, making 4 right turns at crossroads then turning right into the test centre) and about the standard of US driving in general (eg. those videos where a single accident turns into a multi car pileup because of people not noticing the stationary vehicles) I think you guys may well have a bigger problem than just people's taste in cars.

The Rush and Lum, on the subject of driving tests, I worked there for a while in the mid '90s. The first place I worked had a farm semi (being a farm) and I needed to take grain to the rail sidings. I was 21 and had never so much as sat in a truck let alown driven one. Needless to say I was soon at the helm of an 80,000# Mack semi with no CDL , apparantly you don't/didn't need a CDL to drive a farm truck . The handling of the machine was ok, as I'd been used to driving all sorts of machines so it was just another one to learn and much easier that taking the farm kit along the road.

When I went back to go on harvest (different state and employer) I needed a CDL to move combines (oversized loads). My employer put us all through the tests and taught us very well, but it was the least demanding of the driving test that I have taken. The trucks were brand new Peterbilts with auto boxes. On the tests we pulled pup trailers (2 pivot points), these are very difficult to reverse, but because on the trucks you had to ride the brakes there was no telling what the would do so the reversing bit was taken out of the test!

Within the week we we pulling loads that were 75 feet long, 14 feet high and 12'6 wide

Whether it was concocted by the government industry, or the insurance industry is incidental; it's a money scheme which also happens to have the benefit of being a good idea. You are lucky to have any additional experiential driver safety education supported by your government AT ALL.
Once the so-called 'road test' is passed, there is no experiential training that will save any driver any money whatsoever; in fact it is expressly forbidden by city, state, and federal ordinances on the grounds that ALL experiential training encourages antisocial driving behaviors.
At least once a week, I either personally witness, or arrive at the scene of, a fenderbender or some other sort of collision in which no one gets hurt ... initially. On several occasions, one or both of the initial parties refuses to move their cars on the grounds that the officer enroute will want to examine undisturbed evidence. (This is almost never the case; if no one is hurt, the cars should be moved if they are impeding the flow of traffic as soon as possible, under penalty of a fine.) On far too many occassions, this unreasonable urge to preserve the scene becomes the prime causal factor in answering the question, "How many accidents can one accident cause?"

Whenever I see such an initial accident, if I have time to spare in my schedule, I'll try to do something to minimize the likelihood that more cars will add themselves to an accident scene - move an object, place my car just so ... I have ceased to act surprised that the initial parties never do anything to prevent the possibility of a bad thing getting worse.

I wouldn't have to do this if we weren't a nation of novice drivers.

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

WTF? Seriously, can you explain the logic behind that one as I don't understand at all.



I'd hardly call it the prime causal factor. I understand your point that if there wern't a couple of bent cars in the middle of the street then you're not going to have someone driving into them later, but the prime causal factor is surely the fact that someone is such a poor driver that they failed to notice a stationary car in the middle of the street and just drove straight into it.

The fact that you're encountering this situation once a week is somewhat alarming.



Aren't you worried that someone will just crash into your car instead?

I don't understand it either. If your job requires additional driving skills, your job provides the training, but there is no such thing as additional experiential training that a civilian can opt for, that will lower your insurance premiums, or anything like Pass Plus.
Most people who work in government positions where such decisions get made are afraid of a more skilled population of drivers; they might become too intelligent, and start to see through the lies.

We have some incredibly short on-ramps and off-ramps, other have vicious decreasing radii. Couple that with two poor drivers with poor attitudes who can't be bothered to analyze a limit point while trying to flush themselves down at the same time, and at least one of 'em is gonna look like ...

Placing my car at a more visible point, long before the radii begins to decrease at all, has - up until now - had the desired effect; other drivers see and slow down well in advance of my car, which also has the additional effect of making them approach the ramp much more slowly, ensuring they will evade the scene to come.

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

I have a copy of "Mind Driving" which I pre-ordered when it first appeared on here (and Amazon). Bought it along with the latest Roadcraft as I'd just started doing my IAM course. Read them both cover to cover - and would encourage anyone to read Mind Driving.

Especially a friend of mine who, let's say, makes me nervous whenever he's on the road. Then dusts off the old "I've had my license twice as long as you" line... maybe (11 years as opposed to 6) but he does 10k/year, I do 30k plus/year... so that works out at a higher mileage - therefore more experience. I've offered to lend him Mind Driving, his response was "what would that teach me that I don't already know?" I've also tried to encourage him to take the IAM or RoSPA advanced driving course, his response was "there's nothing they could teach me". Well... with that attitude he's probably right as he's simply not prepared to learn. He'll just keep sitting right there in the middle lane until he's served a nasty accident.

Ok, this guy's a particularly stubborn example but this unwillingness to learn and improve is one of the reasons that the roads have got more and more dangerous - and I've seen this happen over the last 6 years. The amount of stupidity especially on motorways increases daily, although one of the worst bits of driving I've witnessed recently was on a B-road in Cornwall:

B3314 driving west towards Delabole. I wasn't exactly going slow (around 90mph if I recall, nice straight road). An Impreza had been following me for the last few miles and until that point had been quite happy to sit behind me. After all I was just under the ton down a Cornish B-road (albeit a fairly wide one).

Just approaching Delabole Impreza Man decides he *absolutely* must get past me. At this point I was doing around 95 - and this change of attitude from him seemed to coincide with him getting close enough to see the "TDI" badge on the back of my car... he realised he was following a diesel! Anyway... probably less than 5 seconds from a blind right hand bend he pulls out and starts to overtake... then realises he's run out of road.

At this point two cars appear around the bend heading straight towards the guy on a collision course. He didn't have time or space to get in behind me so I did the only thing I could - braked, HARD. Cue much flashing and "tosser" signs from the drivers of the two cars coming the other way. Quite deservedly as it happens. I didn't react although I did doubt the guy's sanity.

Karma caught up with him about 2 miles down the road. He'd got caught behind a tractor and was sat too close to be able to see to overtake safely. I came up behind with good sightlines (straight road again) and overtook him and the tractor. With a smug grin on my face.

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Magistrates rule #1: "Never let justice get in the way of a conviction."

Firstly - if you're in correct lane , doing things correctly , forget pri*** behind you - concentrate on driving correctly - tip about roundabouts - if missing exit -go round again - no law against it . Way forward is to learn to control situation by ignoring pillock behind - their idea is to force you into mistakes - drive at your own pace ,ignore idiot (I know ,easier said than done )and seek to improve your skills .
Even I with about a million miles under my belt ,and 40+years get nervous with prat on rear bumper. Trick is to get rid of them fast .In your case ,you've no skills in loosoing them ,so move over and let them go to their next shunt .



Secondly - listen to advice on here - plenty of it - from novices like me (still learning after 1m miles and 40 years ) to professionals like IG

Ask ,and the old hands will try to help

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on