Safe Speed Forums

Ok, most of the people on the forum are fairly keen on driving and take it fairly seriously, but how good can we expect the average driver to be? To make a feeble analogy, everybody has to eat and most people cook, some people are rubbish cooks and others are very good.

Are the people that drive because they have to able to be taught to drive better, and not just for a test? Or do we just accept that not everyone can drive as well as we would like them to?

I think the big answer is 'better than last year'.

We have a nation of average drivers, and almost all of them have a great deal to learn. Yet we have the safest roads in the world. There's oodles of room for improvement - we don't need to get into the silly area of trying to train everyone to Police Class One standard.

So let's have policies that deliver small, steady, regular improvements in the average.

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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

Taking that analogy a bit further - while most people are not excellent cooks, they are at least adequate. Only a very few of them will give themselves food poisoning, for example.

Cheers
Peter

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

I cannot speak for everybody, but I believwe since we all share roads with each other, and under circumstances where a mistake can cause injury or death, then we should have a minimum standard.
My youngest son is going to find driving difficult, as it will not be instinctive. However his recall may well be better than most, so he COULD drive well, if he has logged sufficient incidents to be able to draw on experience.
This is a complicated issue which is worthy of disscussion and research - I believe accidents result from a low standard of driving, and any attempt to address the problem other than improving driving ability is like putting a sticking plaster on a cut, and not fixing the broken bone underneath - sooner or later it is going to hurt!!

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

In answer to the question I would say:

Good enough to be able to contribute to a substantial improvement in our safety record, if suitably knowledgeable and influential authorities were to:

a) Start talking to the driving community instead of simply spoon feeding us 'safety measures' that don't actually achieve much.

b) Start a positive publicity campaign to try and raise the level of interest in the subject of driving. Attitudes are the key to this.

c) Identify a few of the primary causes of accidents and concentrate on getting the message across to all road users (not just drivers) about how to avoid those problems.

InGear, my friend - your COAST campaign is one of the principle elements of this.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Probably should move this to brainstormingh, but I think Peter has a good point here. Begginer cooks follw religiously the recipe, turning the gas to the exact point stated in the book and cooking for the exact time. After five goes at a victoria sponge, depending on the quality of their oven, they will (if lucky) have good sponges. Alternatively they will either have soggy or burnt ones (or a bit of both).

The average cook will have overcome this in their own oven to the extent that all or almost all sponges they produce in that oven will range from highly acceptable to perfect. However, give them someone else's oven and the learning process starts again.

The best cooks will probably not weigh out ingredients, will likely be able to get near perfect results first time from a strange oven, by making subtle adjustments ALONG THE WAY. Oh my, that may mean exceeding the stated temperature for a little while to bring things back on track. Just as well decent ovens don't have temperature cameras in them

I would hazard a guess that the majority of drivers have the ability to drive to an adequate standard on the road, but the problem is too many are apathetic to the skills of driving. They can turn good driver when they want to, but to often a bad attitude and laziness spoils this. This is perhaps down to the lack of police on the roads and the belief that they are probably(and they'd be right) not going to get stopped.

Of course there are some who would need a vast improvement in skills to be safe, and perhaps many of us need a brush up or reminded now and again. However, my belief is that you will see good results by tackling driver behavoir and an increased police activity to give a visible deterrant to sloppy drving.

Most cooks produce something edible - most drivers reach their destination.

Very few cooks set fire to the kitchen - very few drivers have accidents.

Lots of cooks have the odd spillage or burnt pie even the best ones - quite a few drivers have near misses but the best drivers don't.

So on balance we are better drivers than cooks.

Taught William how to drive rather than just for a test. We started when he was 15 as with our twins at the moment. Go karting etc, getting them to observe and anticipate early - whilst on bikes and horses: my own dad did this and so too my father-in-law,

So yes - some things can be developed early in preparation for actually driving a car.

The same applies with culinary skills - I learned from my mother and our kids are learning with us - and we have the odd disaster like burning the toast.


Best cooking disaster though - Wildy 's first ever Christmas Cake! She mixed it - placed in oven - but did not realise that this is a slow- bake cake.

She set the oven too high and it burnt at the edges. She was not too bothered about this though - she was going to decorate it anyway! :lol "Liebchen - they will not taste under all this icing -" so she declared to me at time :

So... Christmas Day arrives and my parents come to dinner. In the centre of the table is an immaculately iced work of art

She cuts into it and ..... .. it's all gooey and uncooked in the centre.

She departs into kitchen in embarrassment - but places cake in a tin and shoves it th back of larder muttering some obscure Swiss things

We had Jaffa Cakes instead with the after indulgence brandy!

Easter comes - she rterieves cake. Removes the icing and places it in the over as it's still a bit gooey. My mother comes to tea - Wildy serves a piece of fruit cake (Yup - same cake!) My Mum goes in raptures over the "great improvement" After she has eaten last mouthful (or rather polished off the whole cake - Wildy then tells her the history to "THE CAKE!" Mum had no ill effects from this at all - in fact we think the cake matured.


Wildy 's cooking is now excellent and she never half baked a cake after this. Thus - you can and do leanr by mistakes and experience!

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I think we have to accept that driving skills vary. Having said that we should be able to expect a reasonable minimum standard. This, I think, is what the driving test is there for. Now I think we would all agree that passing the test is just the start of the learning curve.

This is where the trouble starts. Speaking personally, I enjoy improving my skills, not only does it make me a better driver and a safer driver but it gives immense self satisfaction. It seems to me that this attitude is not shared by everyone. A lot of people seem to have no interest in improving their ability (and, maybe, some just can't)

I think a good driver can make a fair and accurate assessment of other people's driving ability (we do this all the time, don't we?) So it should not be impossible to have advanced driving tests-not as an option but a requirement, say every five years. But one word of caution here, the advanced tests should concentrate on driving skills like observation, anticipation, reaction etc. and not on pedantic irrelevancies. I add this because of one item in the advanced test (which I totally disagree with) which is "shuffling" the wheel and not crossing your hands! Now excuse me but who thought this one up? Ever watched a racing driver or a rally driver, they don't shuffle do they? and they are drivers at the peak of the profession.

So lets get rid of this absurd rule and concentrate on important issues. One other thing, if someone fails their test for the tenth time, let's just forget it eh? Frankly they just don't have what it takes and should not be on the road. It's pathetic to see some people taking their test for the twentieth time, hoping that this time they might just make it.

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I'm not always right, but my score is higher than the government's

Most people seems to be thinking of fairly drastic and wholesale changes. I don't believe that's right. We already have the best road safety system in the world - we just need to nudge that system in the right direction. We need to consider the factors that make our road safer than other countrys, and build on those strengths.

Have a look at this page:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/roadsafety.html

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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 agree... Just getting a majority of drivers to look a little further ahead than the end of the bonnet would be a serious contrubution to road safety.

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

Sorry Paul, I'm going to disagree with you on that one.

The average standard of driving is just that - pretty average. Most people however think they are far better than they really are, and the system of getting someone to pass a test once in their life then be unleashed with a vehicle of unlimited power on any road type is, frankly, barmy.

You only need to take a prolonged drive on any motorway to see that a large percentage of users, if not the majority, actually can't drive properly - poor lane discipline, inappropriate speed (note I don't say excess to the limit, merely wrong time, wrong place), and a complete lack of anticipation and attention are common. Add to that all the other activities people seem to think OK in cars (phoning, reading, drinking coffee, etc) and the real problem becomes clear.

So how do we change that ? A few ideas....

Retest every ten years with a meaningful medical

Seperate motorway test at least 6 months after first test

Requirement to re-test after any dangerous driving, reckless driving event or more than three own-fault accidents in five years,

Drop the moronic "speed kills" message in favour of driving education campaign focussing on inattention, poor skills, etc

Seperate MOT for caravans, horse boxes, trailers

Companies to be held liable for training for high-mileage drivers

Proper road maintenance and signing

Any thoughts folks ?

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Never point a speedmeter at a civil or military aircraft, vessel or armoured vehicle. Many military aircraft, vehicles or vessels have target acquisition detectors, some of which initiate automatic counter measures.
Association of Chief Police Officers

Oh, please feel free!

I agree with your ideas, but I don't think you're working at a deep enough level. I think we need to work at the 'culture / attitude' level to make a big difference (albeit in small increments). Have a look at:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/roadsafety.html and
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/manifesto.html

The truly wonderful news is that we've achieved the safest roads in the world with a nation of pretty crap drivers - there's so much room for improvement...

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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 think I agree on most of these. Argued though for assessement rather than formal test every five years. Assessement ideally should be graded and higher the grade - lower the insurance premium as an incentive to do well. This offests the cost of the assessment to some extent and may not thus be perceived as "another stealth tax"


But you already know - folks from this family will at some stage mention good ol' COAST!

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

I'm as firmly of the opinion as ever that one cannot disconnect peoples attitude towards driving from their attitude towards other aspects of life and society in general.
Many drivers simply don't care if others assess their driving as being below par. Having passed their test and demonstrated competency for at least 40 minutes some 20 odd years ago their attitude seems generally to be "If you don't like my driving, don't ride with me". Humility and personal pride in ones skills seems scant.
We get the kind of drivers we (this is the general 'we' BTW) deserve, and if nothing is done to encourage or incentivise through either positive or negative mechanisms pride in ones driving, then people just can't be bothered to improve somthing they don't belive is wrong in the first place.

A contributor to this forum has in his sig. a quote from Stirling Moss along the lines of "there are two things no man will admit he does badly - drive and make love".

However, I come across a growing number of people who cheerfully say "I'm a crap driver, me " without any sense of shame. They are often, although by no means always, female, it must be said. Allied to this is the view that anything is OK so long as you can get away with it, which is an attitude that has been encouraged by the growth of the speed camera culture. I suspect most people if asked would struggle to describe what are the characteristics of a "good" on-road driver, as it isn't a simple matter of either having very strong technical skills or obeying the law all the time.

However we must remember that it is much more difficult to test for attitude than to test for skill, and in general crashes result from a failure of attitude rather than people really not knowing how to cope with a particular situation.

Therefore, as I have said before, I do not believe that tougher or more intensive training and testing is a panacea for road safety - the key thing is changing the culture.

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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 firmly of the opinion that most crashes are as a result of failure of attitude, rather than failure of driving skills.
It's attitude, and focusing on the wrong things, which gets drivers into situations in the first place - situations from which they may or may not have the skills to extricate themselves.

Cheers
Peter

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

I think we're on the same lines here Pete and Peter, attitude is pivotal. Without a positive and appropriate attitude, forget it.

Indeed... but let's dig a little deeper and ask what influences attitude?

I believe the Safe Speed manifesto is well designed to foster improved attitudes.

One important thing we need to do to improve average attitudes is to get the people with truly dangerous attitudes off the roads. We can only do that with good roads policing.

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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