Here's my theory. If the powers that be demanded drivers be trained similarly to pilots then we would have fewer drivers out there, and the ones that remain will be the good ones.

Get get a Private Pilot's License you must:
1. Trial Instructional Flight for about 30 minutes(drive in the parking lot just for fun)
2. Pass medical checks every 2 years
3. After approx. 20 hours of training do your first Solo in the parking lot.
4. Cross country training
5. 40 hours minimum flight time for Private Pilot's Lisence. 70 to 80 in most cases.
6. Pass various other written and fiyling tests.

Once you get a basic Private Pilot's Lisence you can then go on to get instrument rating(flying through hurricanes), multi engine rating, aerobatics(trick and stuff), etc.
What do you guys think?

I just think we should make it a lot more difficult by demanding that they have to do a lot more than drive a straight line.

When I was living in Australia, folks were working to get their license. It took more than taking a straight from the book, easy exam and driving around the corner.

I heard Singapore has really strict testing for driving also.

Koffee

koffee who is the woman in your avitar? She looks like a singer.

Eartha Kitt

Given that you don't need any kind of license to ride a bike on the road I think that we should be a bit careful when we wish for tighter regulation of drivers.

How would you like it if that scheme was applied to cyclists?

Well, how many cyclists have ridden drunk and killed someone? How many cyclists have been riding with cellphones and hit other cyclists, pedestrians, cars, etc.? How many cyclists go out riding sleep deprived and end up causing pile ups on roads that kill people? How many cyclists ride their bikes too fast for weather conditions in bad weather?

That's a pretty big stretch you're making for cyclists, IronHorse.... it's not the same situation, or even close.

Koffee

Koffee, yeah, I thought she looked familiar. She been a a few movies here of late. Holes was the latest I think.

Iron, same logic applied to cyclists? I'd go get my dad's shotgun.

i dont think it's really the ability of most people to drive. it's that they just dont care/pay attention and are more worried about themselves and getting themselves from point a to b than other people. i would, however, like to see drivers education give some in car educating when it comes to things such as: what to do when you lose traction, etc., instead of just reading it in a book.

I think it's a pretty big stretch between cars and planes and it's arguable that, with the exception of of riding sleep deprived, _some_ cyclists are guilty of the things you describe.

I've long argued with my friends over this issue.
They all view driving a car as a human right.

I find it amazing that I can get a driver's licence here much more easily than I can a pilot's licence.

As a pilot of a GA (general aviation) aircraft, you can do very little damage to anything.
The mass of the aircraft is typically about one ton, much less than many modern cars.
The concentration of mass is greater in a car. The typical aluminium aircraft will crumple, but the car will not to the same extent.
If you mess up in a GA aircraft, you're unlikely to injure or kill more than whoever is in the cockpit with you. In a car on a busy road, you could easily cause massive devastation.

I'd like to see a mandatory 50-100 hours minimum of driving practice, with qualified instructors only. Learning how to operate the car doesn't take long. Most people will learn that in a couple of hours. The rest of the time would be dedicated to making people understand how dangerous a moving car really is. In particular, to make people aware of what speed does to: observation, braking and total stopping distances, impact energy, hitting a pedestrian, hitting a bicyclist, hitting another car, aquaplaning and general manoeuvrability.

The prospective driver would be required to go through a simulated crash, where the car ******* to simulate an impact with a stationary and immovable object at 5, 10 and 15 mph, to develop a sense of the relationship between speed and energy. Failure to go through with the exercise would mean instant disqualification from the course.

There should also be a gradual access to large cars.
For the first year or so, the driver would be limited to cars with a power to weight ratio of less than 0.075 kW/kg (2.2 HP/lb) and a maximum weight of less than 1000 kg. After that, each incident-free year would grant another 0.025 kW/kg and 250 kg for the following four years. All cars would be allowed after that.

If the licence holder is caught speeding or breaking any other traffic law or regulation, the licence should be revoked immediately, and not be regained unless taking a driving safety class of 25 hours minimum, at the driver's own expense, and passing new theory exams and driving tests. And only after a minimum six months of suspension.

Cars serve a purpose in rural areas, where distances are great and public transport is expensive to provide, and generally for people with various disabilities. For most everyone else, a car is not the best way to get around, and driving should be discouraged as much as possible.
Car-free town and city centres is a good start. People don't need to drive there.

I could go on and on... :D

A bit surprising to see the name "Eartha Kitt" mentioned in a bike forum...but she is well worth remembering.

People who ride bikes as their primary mode of transportation are viewed as swimming against the current..that is the kind of person Eartha Kitt has been. Eartha Kitt had a hugely successful career in the USA until she spoke out against the war in Viet-Nam...while she was a guest at the White House. The White House, the FBI, and the CIA combined efforts to damage her career in America..."Free Speech" is never free, or even cheap.

So, she fell off the radar in America. About twenty-five years ago, I stopped in a tiny restaurant for dinner before going to a play. Seated at the next table was a very striking lady, and she seemed familiar looking. I had never been to London before, so I was puzzled by the certainty that I had met her before. She noticed me looking at her, and gave me a friendly smile. I ate dinner trying to remember where I had seen her before. I resisted the temptation to lean over and ask "Who are you?"

I paid the bill, and stepped out of the restaurant. Facing me was a fifty foor high billboard with her photo, saying "Now starring in....Miss Eartha Kitt".

I was probably the ONLY person in the restaurant and the theatre district that did not know exactly who she was.

I am glad that she has not been forgotten, for she deserves to be remembered for more than just being the first and best "Catwoman".

Sorry for the lack of "bike" content, but when her name came up, I thought there might be younger folks who might not remember the name "Eartha Kitt".

I don't think more stringent licensing requirements are the answer.

I think simply enforcing the laws on the books would be a good start. Aggressively enforcing speed limits and traffic laws and increasing fines to the point where they really started to sting would get people's attention.

Also I think that if we could manage to convince people that if they happened to kill someone with their automobile, that they would serve time in jail and would be prevented from driving for years because of it, that this would also be a good thing.

Dan

I think drivers need to take the written and driving exam ever few years (let's say 4 years). This way you would at least have to remember the rules of the road to keep your license.

I remember taking the written here, and it was 1 of 3 exams given. 1 of 3... that just blows my mind. How easy do they have to make the driving test? South Dakota will give a license to just about anyone. I remember that the Japs in college couldn't even speak english, but they would pass. They had someone who got the answers to all 3 tests and if the first question is this, these are the answers.

Getting a driver's license in the US is a joke. I know people in both Germany and Sweden and getting a license there is actually pretty similar to the pilot requirements you listed (a few variations to make it more applicable to cars, but still). Also, people take getting their license VERY seriously because it can cost upwards of 1000USD or something like that, and thats if you pass it the first time (something which a VERY SMALL number of people do), so many people end up spending like, 3-5k USD over several years to get their license. They also take driving very seriously because, in both countries, fines are imposed based upon the amount of money you make per year, and they are typically higher (assuming middle class income) than what we pay here. I like that policy. Actually, I like a lot of European ideas, especially the Germans... Just not their toilets. Anyone who has been there knows what I speak of.

I have argued this training and education point for so long, I don't even feel like going back and searching through all my previous posts to bring them up again (you can perform a search for yourself). When I was first learning to fly, my instructor said one thing that has always stuck with me.


This piece of advice has served me well throughout every endeavour in my life. I will also submit that despite the proported "America's love for the automobile", people do not in fact really want to drive. They just think they do. Real driving enthusiasts take their driving seriously. Everyone else is at best a hack. the problem is that they're a hack with a potential very destructive weapon.

Not sure which part of Australia you were in, but it certainly wasn't New South Wales or Queensland.

Having said this, a good start would be to simply enforce the laws of the road more tightly (with increased penalties), and have some kind of re-testing every two years. The big farce of all this is that I could get a licence tomorrow and not drive again for 50 years. As long as I keep paying the small fee to have my photo encased in plastic every year, the only thing anybody knows about me is that I've "never had an accident". I'd probably also get cheaper insurance for supposedly being a "good driver". Of course, should I then go out on the road again after that 50 years has elapsed, I'd be a menace to just about everyone in sight. Yes, I know it's an extreme example, but there are plenty of less extreme examples of the same principle out there.

The issue here is how often is it fatal for an innocent third-party? Yes, I know it can happen, but how often does it happen? When you're dealing with an issue of accountability (which is what licencing is supposed to be, although I'm becoming more cynical about that by the day), you need to consider just how much damage that person can do when deciding how you're going to test them. After all, I see plenty of pedestrians do stupid things too, but there's never been any thought of making someone take a licence for walking -- probably because it's generally a harmless activity.

If you have a problem with a cyclist breaking the law, call the cops.

I was in Perth. And being in the USA and living in Australia, I can tell from the experience of being in both places that it's easier to get a license in the USA.

Koffee

Pilot training does not neccessarily make a pilot any more responsible than a driver. Most pilot training revolves around understanding how to navigate, and the myriad of rules of operating an aircraft in controlled airspace. I suspect that the average driver has much more than 40 hours of practice before actually getting a license. In addition, consider that most of a student pilot's flying time is with no instructor in the aircraft. A student driver is required to have a licensed driver in the car.

Flying an aircraft is considerably more complex than driving a car. You have to think in three dimensions and always take wind and weather into account. Almost any problem in a single engine aircraft is a major issue that can quickly become life threatening. The rules and regulations are much more complex than traffic laws for automobiles.

A flight physical is generally a joke. It's primarily a check to see if you have been diagnosed with one of a list of disqualifying conditions and a check that you are not taking an unapproved medication. Virtually any young driver would pass a flight physical unless he/she has diabetes.

There are plenty of irresponsible pilots. It's the high cost of aircraft ownership or rental that keeps the total number low - not the training requirements. With a relatively small number of active pilots (compared to drivers) you hear less about the poor ones. In addition, aircraft incidents take months to investigate so when there is a crash, the news media only reports on the crash itself with the interesting pictures of a plane sticking out of a house. They don't update the report later to tell you why the accident occured. However, pilot error is responsible for a large number of private pilot accidents.

I would add... I've dealt with many pilots and would say that many of them are the typical fast-car kid. I know some who flew drunk or stoned. I wouldn't want to be a car passenger with many of them.

By the way you can get a ticket for riding your bike under the influence. I think it is still called DUI. If you think about it, it is not too safe for the pedestrians you may incounter.

HAHAHAHAHAH

This gave me a laugh even though you were probably joking. My cousin is a pilot and he showed me a video clip of a plane that crashed. I converted it to audio (sounds funny). This is an actual recording, when a boeing was trying to land through a hurricane in China. It was taken by spectators on the ground.

He put it up on the net, this is the URL - just right click and save taget as:

plane_crash.mp3

Sounds like trying to get a drivers licence in switzerland

glomar, your avatar looks like the Borg Queen went super model. :)

Yeah thats pretty wierd............but on another and more clarifying note I am in fact a Man I just like looking the picture. I just thought that needed to be said.


Spencer