Paige

Ah, well I feel better, only 14% admit reading while driving.
https://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/27/dan...ing/index.html

closetbiker

"The most basic -- and violated -- safety rule is to pay attention, to watch what's going on around you," said Ray, the Indy driver. "At the speeds I travel on a race track, if I take my focus off the road for a fraction of a second, it can be fatal. Street drivers need to know that their attention to what's happening is just as crucial."

Amen brother! I guess riding a bike and driving Indy cars go hand in hand!

khuon

"About seven of 10 drivers said they are comfortable with their current level of knowledge about safe driving. When asked how they would do if they retook their driving test, 72 percent said they would ace it, and just one percent said they would fail."

This attitude has always disturbed me. Too many people feel that once someone hands them that little plastic card with their picture in the corner, their training and their need to learn is over. I much prefer the attitude taken in the aviation community and blatantly used as the slogan for one of my favourite magazines, Flight Training. "A good pilot is always training."

closetbiker

I'd also say once someone hands them that little plastic card with their picture in the corner, the driver thinks they can drive the way they want. Not the way they should.

Max

Mama mia. They are reading while driving. How is it possible?

Dahon.Steve

USA Today had some more information

>>>About 500 people on average die on U.S. highways each Memorial Day holiday.

>>>Last year, overall traffic deaths were at their highest since 1990: 42,850 people died in 2002.

These numbers are incredible. I belive in years to come, they will climb higher as the number of cars on the highways reaches critical mass. If you want to know why I believe these numbers will go higher, read the following below from the same article.

• More than 70% own up to speeding. Driving 10 mph over the limit seems fine to one in five respondents.

• Almost one-third say they run red or yellow lights.

• cell phones are used while driving by 37%. Almost 60% eat in their cars. And 14% say they think reading behind the wheel is OK.

• However, drivers ages 26-44 confess to the most driving sins. They take more risks in almost every category — from failing to wear a seat belt (34%), to yakking on cellular telephones (55%).
senior citizens report fewer bad habits than the other groups.

Spire

I agree with everything except the speeding. It has yet to be show that speeding (to a small extent) actually increases fatilities. In Quebec, nearly everybody speeds, if the posted limit is 100 (62mph) most people are going 110 (69mph) if its a city highway and 120 (75mph) if it is rurual. I don't believe we have any more fatalities than anywhere else.

Chris L

That might be because peoplen are speeding everywhere. Around here "speed limit" seems to mean "minimum acceptable speed". If you can find somewhere that people actually don't speed, then do a fatality comparison, it might mean something not to have any more fatalities.

I saw a quote relating to the skill level of drivers around here from a local driving instructor once. He claimed that if all drivers on the Gold Coast had to retake the driving test, 90% would fail. Personally I'd like to see some kind of re-testing legislation introduced.

In my professional life (as I'm sure is the case for everyone in employment of virtually any kind), I am required to keep my skills and knowledge updated, otherwise I'm out of a job. The thing is, if I do my job poorly, I'm unlikely to kill anyone (I'm an accountant). Compare that to drivers who may well kill someone if they do it poorly - and what sort of re-testing/updating of skills do they have? None at all.

I could get a licence tomorrow and not drive at all for the next 50 years. Yet as far as the authorities know, I would have a perfect driving record. Something isn't right here.

khuon

Exactly. In aviation, even private pilots must maintain currency and are required to pass a biennual review. The general public is poised to be exposed more to motorists than they are to general aviation by a significant order of magnitude. Why it is we don't regularly require people to maintain driving proficiency is beyond me.

Chris L

Because as soon as someone fails a driving test, the media will go to town on it with a series of "conspiracy" theories, it will become a major political issue, and the government that brought the policy in is dead-meat.

Boy, am I in a cynical mood today!

closetbiker

and, there will be all kinds of stories about the government restricting "freedom of movement" and all kinds of rubbish!

FOG

Check out this website, a subset of the Transportation Research Board website: https://gulliver.trb.org/publications...nium/00028.pdf

alos check out www.trb.org for general research issues. TRB is partof the National Science Foundation.

Crazy Cyclist

yesterday I saw a woman driving a car while breastfeeding her kid, can you believe that, the steering wheel in 1 hand, and a screaming kid in the other.

John E

In most countries, we desperately need much greater personal accountability for motorists. What many motorists fail to realize is how much stricter driver's licensing standards would benefit them, by making the roads safer for all users.

I know elderly people who equate an eventual loss of license with loss of freedom/mobility. One solution may be neighborhood electric vehicles, but that will require that slower frontage roads be provided to bypass freeway-style expressways. (Come to think of it, this wouldn't be bad for bicyclists, either.)

Speed is a critical problem on local roads with a mix of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists. It is arguably a much less serious issue on the Interstate highway system.

closetbiker

I guess this would be the cost of personal "liberty" (so important in some areas of the world) over the good of society.

Paige

Where I live, Florida, operating a motor vehicle on public roads is a privilege not a right. I'm sure it's the same most anywhere else, though everybody thinks it is a right.

oscaregg

And what they didn't ask about: A few years ago, driving on Interstate 5 near Olympia, my wife looked over into the next lane and a guy was driving along with his laptop propped up on the steering wheel. Northwesterners will know what a brain-dead stunt this was! And, oh, what you'll see from the seat of a bike--I've been passed while riding up long climbs by many thousands of cars, and seen the back of the front-seat passenger's head bobbing up and down in a driver's lap about a dozen of those.

Chris L

The problem arises when those who abuse those privileges don't have them revoked. As I said earlier, it's estimated by driving instructors that around 90% of all motorists around here would be incapable of passing a driving test if they sat one today. When the authorities who administer the system of privileges don't have the strength/integrity to take appropriate action, it becomes a right in practicality.