Safe Speed Forums

Blending together a careful read of the fatal crash reports <here> and some stuff from a recent conversation (I can't for the life of me remember where or with whom), I've realised that 'cool' plays a serious part in young driver crash causation.

Trouble is that the risky young drivers have totally the wrong ideas about what's cool...

Problem ideas:

-it's cool to be brave (/ not be scared)
-it's cool to drive fast (and to make matters even worse, without any useful definition of what 'fast' is)
- it's cool to show off
- it's cool to be a rally driver / racing driver
- it's seriously uncool to be a wimp


Proper ideas:

- it's cool to stay out of trouble
- it's uncool to scare your passengers
- it's cool to be 'responsible'
- it's uncool to crash / have near misses

Any more for those lists? Or any improvements?

Now I reckon - and this is important - that most of the problem young drivers already have a pretty fair idea of what's really cool, but they think their mates have different ideas.

So can't we plan communication that would help to define 'cool' better for young drivers?

[edited to fix url]

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

And aspiration comes into it too.

Do they aspire to become experts at car handling or road driving?

Or in other words - what do they consider the hallmarks of the expert driver?

I expect they take a very simple view and aspire towards car handling skills. They don't know what skills a true expert road driver uses, so they cannot even aspire to the expert standard.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

There is a young chap that works with me that sounds just the type that could be interrogated He's a definite petrol head and whizzes around the 20 mph zones like his arse is on fire.

There's another young one that is sensible but certainly when first driving did not fully appreciate the drive at a speed in which you can see to be clear. He said he'd have to drive around at 25 mph on some country bends. A few others I have spoken to mention reaction times as being better than middle aged persons so therefore they can drive faster because they can stop quicker. They know nothing of the extra time anticipation gives us old farts (ie anyone over 25)

Perhaps pitching it good driving is like being telepathic - use it to get ahead/make better progress without having to drive like a nutter. This is what F1 drivers do as they are going so fast if they were looking at the 6 feet of tarmac in front of them they'd be dead in the first lap! Rally drivers drivers have a navigator so they anticipate the road ahead which they cannot see which is why they can drive so quickly. Then show them the footage of the sheep getting mown down by McRae, I think it was, to point out about the unexpected.

I've no problem with the "driving like a rally / race driver is cool" idea, the only problem is that the average "yoof" has a completely distorted idea of what it actually entails.

If we could properly get the message across that successful competition drivers are not reckless, but instead have extremely highly developed observation and anticipation skills, coupled with first rate car control and mechanical understanding.

So if a young driver aspires to be Colin McRae or Michael Schumacher that's fine, as long as the correct messages are instilled about what that really entails. (Leaving talent out of the eqation for the moment!)

If you booked your average high street tear-arse into a rally or race school just for a couple of hours they'd find it an extremely humbling and eye-opening experience, and every bit as effective at encouraging safer driving as a similar course at a more conventional "safe driving" school.

The main difference is that attending a rally school would clearly be acceptable as "cool" and you might have a chance of getting them in through the gate!

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It might be humbling at the time, yes. But with a couple of hours of experience of limit point handling they will:

a) Want to experience limit point again and again (which is about as bad as it gets on the road)

b) Feel far superior than their mates who have not attended and want to show off.

In my estimation this would be an absolute disaster.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I don't think I got my real point across!

I wasn't meaning that the pupils should spend their time being taught handling skills - that's for the advanced course! In fact I doubt whether I'd even let them in the car at this stage, except perhaps as a brief "treat" for attending the course in the first place.

No, my idea was that they would be taught some of the mental qualities that competition drivers have, to perhaps cause them to consider how Carlos Sainz at the age of 42 could still win World Championship Rallies. The whole point would be to remove the mystique of piratical recklessness that surrounds motor sport in the eyes of a novice driver, and instead instil the true belief that it is about observation, anticipation and careful judgement.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Phew. That's better.

Still I think there's a serious risk that the sense of excitement in the environment would leave them feeling the thrill and missing the message.

You would have to plan it so carefully...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

given that the average chav mobile seems to have the foillowing aims:
- look 'cool' (read crap)
- sound loud (sounds system & exhaust)
- have unfeasibly large alloys & dropped suspension that means you cant actually get full lock.
- and possibly .. go quickly from zero to 40mph with as much tyre smoke as possible

it seems unlikely that real handling is high on their priorities.

PS.. saw a moped with an underbody fluro tube the other day
didn't get any oft my cool sensors going.

It was Steve Haley, on the phone a couple of weeks ago.

I'm now seeing three very narrow worthwhile targets for reducing the risks associated with young drivers:

1) A better set of standards about what's cool

2) A MUCH better aspirational target.

3) A much better understanding of the nature of driver responsibility.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Perhaps they need to be put in the passenger seat with a real racing driver doing a lap or two of the track, or on a rally course.
If that doesn't put the fear of God into them, I don't know what will - it'll probably take them quite a while to prise their white knuckles from the door handle.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

But Pete, surely they will end up wit the exact opposite of the desired effect.

They will respect the handling skills displayed and aspire to them. They might even learn that it's OK to scare the hell out of passengers (after all, the best driver they have ever seen did). Surely they will go on the road and tend towards emulating the skills displayed with horrible consequences?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I don't know... Might it perhaps bring home to them the massive difference in the speeds you achieve on a circuit in relative safety compared to normal driving and thus an awareness of the incredible stupidity - not to mention the impossibility - of attempting to emulate them on the road.

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

i'm inclined to agree.

i can (and i'm sure many here can) have a chavmobile sat on my bumper through a 30, and then outdrive them calmly, smoothly & safely when a slightly wiggly NSL presents itself.

problem is they won't see this, they probably think i'm going all out just to prove a point.

how you get them to recognise you can make progress without excessive risk & without scaring the willies out of your passengers i'm not sure.

i can only imagine a handful being positively affected by observing an IAM drive or similar, maybe they need to go in with a police driver?

the first few chapters of roadcraft apply more than ever, you wont get them to improve unless you can get them to recognise their failings.

My friend had three cars in his first year of driving. He is far from cool now.

On the subject of it's cool to drive fast, do local authorities expect us to have respect for speed limits when they are inappropriately low. I've been given the nickname Captain Slow like James May, just because I stick to snail's speed limits. Maybe if speed limits were appropriate then driving at them would not be seen as being stupid.

Young drivers get their bad influence from police cars breaking speed limits without their lights on, such as one going about 60mph in a 40mph suburban road near me without the lights. What role models! And they jump red lights lights out too, and escape getting points because it is your word against theirs (the police officer said that he went through on amber, so sorry [we'll believe him instead]).

Reality Check:

Anyone over 25 telling anyone under 25 that something is either 'cool' or 'uncool' is almost certain to achieve the opposite effect to that desired.

Does that apply to Nike advertising?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I'm sorry, that's lost on me as I don't really watch TV. But cast your minds back to went you were hip young hepcats (etc...).

If a member of a motoring organisation had told you what was "cool" , you would have done the exact opposite, almost on principle.

At 33 (and not watching TV), I'm no longer sure whether the word "cool" in itself is cool any more......

I usually am doing it to prove a point

To be honest, I think that while there is no criticism possible of Paul's intentions, I cannot for the life of me see how this could be worked. And, critically, I don't believe that this is a road safety issue at heart. I think it runs deeper than that; it's both biological and sociological. The former is not alterable, the latter can only be changed by not voting Labour. There was a very interesting thread about this sort of thing recently. I see speed cameras as part of the nanny/police state that almost guarantees a rebellion of some kind, often through one's car, but that's for another thread.