The Rush wrote:
To all, I'm responding to Chris's 1st post, in a similarly but less effectively titled topic, because I, for one, don't believe that an adequate answer is forthcoming; all I've seen are symptoms and patches. I don't think I hold the answer myself, either, but I see things differently. Maybe if we all start moving toward the same goal, rather than trying to win by defeating the previous post ... I will waste very little time debating if I feel that I am pushing against a door that pulls open. If this thread is more argument driven than solution driven, I will consider it for naught.
The length of this post is due to the fact that I only get one day off a week this month.
The Christmas season
We do use taxis more in the "season" - because we will go out.. have a drinky with the meals .. but we are most sensible "hoons" really. It the COAST thing. Besides IG has a very acid manner over "under influences"
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Aside from those who are too worldweary to properly respond to the potential and actual hazards of driving whilst keeping up with traffic, yes, young, inexperienced drivers have a very high, if not the greatest risk of an accident. Age and immaturity are fertile breeding grounds for inexperience, which is another way of saying self-learning and self-teaching badly. I can think of few subjects that I'd want to learn from a self-taught walking hormone in their early 20s, regardless of my age ... but I didn't feel that way when I was eight.
Wow succinct. I am sure you were the taxi driver when we in USA.. no.. we were in New England at the time.. A move was on cards two year ago. We did like what we saw there.. .. it was "big career move for both me und the Mad Doc in many ways.. he in one Uni und me with firm I work for .. heading the research over there instead of over here - "bigger" as everything over there just seemed "bigger und deeper" to us.
It was just.. sigh.. I just love living here .. despite the rather naff incumbent of Downing Street. Dumber Dubya lead over there .. It was more . perhaps "better the
double dealing teflon pancake und over-matured haggis" we know
if you get what I say here
than the motor mouthed with foot on loud pedal of fluffy gaffe if you get what I try to say here
(he remind me more of the Spitting Image sketch where Ronnie made love to Nancy und hit the "nuke button" instead of the "nurse" button with the line of "well at last I made the world shake for you!"
He the same fluff head type in many ways...
He also like wars as well...
But no matter .. I waffle as usual. Paulie (bless him und his soul) once tell me in pm that I had the knack of making him laugh loudly - but sometimes made him think.. but we both agreed that I can be very "zany to point of eccentricity" at times
)
The big car park
We still have the empty ones across Germany/Austria/Switzerland at weekends because they tend not to trade 24 hours or on Sundays.. France has them on Sundays because little "Sunday trading". UK lose these to Tesco/Asda etc.
But I do remember Papa teaching me that passenger should not feel the jolt of braking on a car park.. Papa .. he .. he drove across the empty expanse of an out of town car park.. I think we talk of about 2 kilometre square.. off roughest memory recall .. at hard accelerate but still stop the car each time one metre from barrier without us or the eggs on back seat even rolling.
He was telling us that braking has to be firm but smooth ,.. not jolting.
He also had us steering the cars into the bays - but he also had us cycling on the main roads with him. We adopt same procedure with our own brood who are taught the Green Cross Code in what I think to be a "make it fun" way from toddling. We have them in cycling trailers .. child bike seats from early ages .. und we draw attention all the time to what happen in the world on main roads.
These kittens of ours then are happy to ride with full awareness of danger und how to keep safe. But it important to teach that we are each responsible for our own lives und self preservation
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So begins my story ...
When I was eight, my father (who, today, can't drive his way out of a wet paper bag with a GPS) took me to a huge parking lot, put me on his lap, and let me steer. He controlled the accel and decel. I simply learned to steer in harmony with the pace he was setting. He seemed to quickly develop a sense of how to keep my attention by varying the pace, without going too slow for very long, risking boredom and my urge to learn, nor going too fast for very long, risking my discouragement. Still, at times I thought he went a bit too fast or too slow, but now I think that those brief fluctuations were his way of keeping my attention, as well as helping me to understand the importance of maintaining the balance of the car (1974 Chevy Nova slantsix). The throttle was the difficulty setting, and I believe he eventually turned it up to about 8 of 10, and kept it there for several seconds; it was a huge parking lot. I never saw hard throttle or hard braking as emergency situations, just harder and more demanding. I never tired of this, but I think he did, and at that point, he said something to the effect of
"Learning to speak properly is the easiest part of learning to communicate properly. You will spend the rest of your life on the latter, just as you will spend the rest of your life learning to interact with all the other cars out there."
Your Papa.. he kindred spirit to my own Papa. He absolutely right there
It the eternal learning curve.. we always learning our social skills .. adapting them to demands of the contemporary as opposed to the past.
Today's girls do not wait for Mr Darcy to invite them to dance with him. They tend to approach him these days ..
WE then initiate.. take control of situation.. adapt it to the moment.. to enjoy . . or simply survive on those roads out there - which also something Paulie put up for discussion,.. to learn from discussion.. to formulate his ideas.. work on them..
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He got a mild heart attack the next day, and though he recovered quickly, the lessons stopped.
By nine, I was parallel parking the car every morning alone (alternate-side street cleaning). By twelve, the parentals'd send me to get the car from the mall's parking lot to meet them nearer the elevator, so they wouldn't have to carry all that stuff so far.
At 19, I became a US Marine, and drove until I was 20, on base (Camp Pendleton, San Diego, CA) ...
WITHOUT A LICENSE of any kind. I thought I was allowed to drive on base without one, and my driving was such that no one noticed.
You must have been competent though
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My L-Test, as you call it, especially in light of my considerable, yet considerably lacking training experiences, was either a joke, an insult, and or a disservice to the entire freakin human race. I'm holding back a lot when I say this, just look at the size of this post.
But when I got my license at 20 ... let's just say that the only times I remember using the brakes to avoid an accident were when every other option was unavailable, and even then I'd wait until I had to hit them so hard that the ABS kicked in, hoping against hope that the other driver would 'do their part'. I usually preferred to use the gas and/or the steering to extricate myself from situations, only to place myself in others that eventually did require threshold braking combined with emergency steering, followed by skid compensation.
OK ... in the interest of honesty, I will say that, daily, from the day I was licensed, I'd have at least one near miss daily, usually four or five, driving an average of 150 miles daily, five days a week, at the posted limit +10 MpH, except in school zones, hospitals, and the like. Even then, I understood that some people, for whatever reason, don't have the same odds as the general public at their disposal, and gave them more benefit of the doubt.
I was never competing with, or proving myself to, anyone ... except myself. I went out of my way not to interfere with the flow of traffic, whilst always using it as my minimum standard.
Learning to tone it down has been an ongiong process. Some of my best friends (yes, I've lost a few as a direct result of my driving style) have said that I will finally drive like a normal human being at an age when most couldn't drive at all.
Someone's sig says something like, 'Occam's Razor, but no simpler'. Believe it or not, I tried.
Knowing that:
a) I am now a 33 year old taxidriver whose nickname is well known in a 4 mile radius
b) I was in two accidents in 1999, one was proven the fault of the police officer - she didn't admit it - the other of the trucker, and that one was blatantly obvious, since I was parked (you'd call him a lorrydriver?)
c) if I can't either outpace traffic or drive at the posted limit +10MpH, I feel a mild urge for more stimuli (I think this is my body trying to stave off boredom)
What do you think of what and how I was taught by my father?
What do you think of how I processed what he taught me?
What do you think of the impression the L-test gave me (not my impression of the L-Test)?
What do you think of how I processed the rest of my experiences?
Assuming you [get to] teach your child how to drive, what, where, when, how, and why?
I think your Papa tried to teach you how speed felt. We tend to encourage go-karting for handling und cycliing for how to read traffic.
L test should have tested your skills.. challenged them. I think Germany has it right .. not because that where I learn.. but because it just pure "logic" really
Our own kids? We are constantly teaching them road sense from moment they walk und talk - in line with their ability/development.
We encourage them to ride bikes.. ride horses .. "feel the speed ".. und "feel the menace" from other road user too here. We have them looking out for hazards from earliest ages.. und we book driving lessons en bloc.. followed by practices with us.. followed by tighten up set of lessons .. followed by supervised drive on motorways with us .. und a solo drive with us just following at distance
we encourage Pass Plus und insist the test ist just the starting point .. that we continue to learn. MUST continue to learn.
But you are perhaps "doing yourself down" Evaluate your next drive.. each hazard you defended against .. each hazard you may have caused.. learn from it. Paulie suggested a note book. He was RIGHT .. SO
RIGHT
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