Changing the focus on driving

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This article was published 30/06/2023 (824 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THOUGHTS and prayers: it’s what people send when they want to virtue signal their empathy for a particular disaster but don’t actually want to do anything to solve the problem.

In the United States, it’s most often associated with gun violence. Its utterers care enough about tragedy to say the words but not enough to take even minimally invasive action to curtail it.

Canada has its own “thoughts and prayers” problem: driving safety.

Whether it’s improving intersections to help avoid the tragedy of June 15, or improving driver training to help alleviate the epidemic of roadway fatalities, governments here send thoughts and prayers but don’t actually do anything.

Instead, we set up radar cameras and collect millions in revenue under the guise of safety. The Winnipeg Police Service essentially admitted as much in Year 2 of radar cameras: a year after assuring us “it’s not about the money, it’s about safety,” the police pleaded with the province for more leniency in setting up such cameras because the revenue wasn’t meeting expectations.

Here’s the thing about speeding: it’s the low-hanging fruit of traffic safety.

Governments aren’t going to encounter much, if any, opposition to enforcing speed limits. Its supporters will nod approvingly and trot out much-used tropes such as “If you don’t want a ticket, don’t speed.”

While that is true, and while it’s true that speeding can indeed be unsafe, the focus on speed enforcement allows police and government to gloss over enforcement programs, legislative changes and capital expenditures that would have a meaningful impact on driving safety.

Speeding is an issue but more important would be addressing those drivers who are, to employ an aphorism from consumer advocate Ralph Nader, unsafe at any speed.

Case in point: Once, years ago, I returned to my vehicle to find a mid-1980s Pontiac Parisienne parked so close, an acrobatic entrance through the passenger door and over the gearshift would have been my only option.

“I’m so sorry, I’m not very good at parking,” said the Pontiac driver, who came out as soon as she saw me standing next to her car. Really, I hadn’t noticed…

What happened next, however, was truly frightening: she gets into her car, starts the engine and then starts air-steering the steering wheel to try to recall which way to turn the wheel to make the car go in the desired direction in reverse.

“The spot across from you is open,” I helpfully point out. “Just back up straight.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” came the reply.

How this person got a driver’s licence is a mystery.

If it’s not outright incompetence, it’s selfish arrogance. Last year, on a drive from Chicago to Minneapolis, a Toyota Tacoma driver, pulling a trailer in the far left lane, ignored 20 car lengths of empty space behind me to speed up to get in front of me — his trailer would have clipped my front bumper had I not braked — just to brake for the exit ramp he almost missed.

Both instances represent the kind of driving incompetence that would not show up in an officer’s radar gun.

Politicians often tout Sweden’s Vision Zero approach to driving safety. It’s a program that has a goal of zero driving fatalities. A worthy goal, but getting there would be fraught with political strife in a country where driving is too often seen as a right, not an obligation to others.

What they don’t mention about Sweden’s approach is the difficulty in actually getting a licence to drive in the Scandinavian country. See: http://wfp.to/sweden

Students can’t simply get mom or dad to show them the ropes: they must enrol in actual driving schools, spend a significant amount of time driving with instructor supervision and have significant classroom time, as well. While they can get a learner’s permit at 16, they’re not allowed to challenge for a full driver’s licence until age 18.

That’s not all that Sweden does, either. Imagine, a winter country having the temerity to require candidates to learn and demonstrate winter-driving capability, including skid recovery on ice. Given Manitoba’s six months of winter, such a requirement makes sense here, too.

To fix driving safety in North America, we have to change the psychology of driving. A driver’s licence isn’t some trinket to be doled out to everyone, no matter how bad they are at driving. It needs instead to be seen as handing out the trigger to a 1,500-kilogram rocket capable of death and dismemberment.

Barely pass your test in a clapped-out Corolla in a Manitoba small town and suddenly you have free reign to drive any number of vehicles, from an extremely powerful sports car to a massive pickup towing a trailer up to 4,540 kg (10,000 lbs), on any number of roads, including madhouses such as Calgary’s Deerfoot Trail or Toronto’s Highway 401.

How does that make sense?

Vehicle manufacturers could help, too. How often do commercials feature moving vehicles in which the driver is bopping to music, chatting with friends or playing with the entertainment system? Driving can be great fun, but the driving part requires focus, not carefree insouciance.

So, what do we do? Minimize the inheritance of bad habits from mom or dad by mandating the hiring of trained instructors. Make sure those instructors are trained in vehicle dynamics, that they understand weight transfer and its effect on vehicle stability. Change the psychology of driving from me-first to a collaborative approach.

Mandate an additional test to graduate to each new level in graduated licensing: the mere passage of time is little guarantee the candidate actually learned anything, or didn’t pick up bad habits.

Teach recovery techniques, both from skids and from breakdowns.

Driving instructors need to know those principles, too, unlike my son’s teacher, who slammed on the instructor brake in the middle of a slippery curve and was surprised the car spun. (While the reason for applying the brake in a curve isn’t relevant to the instructor’s degree of competence, not knowing the inevitable result is.)

We have to return to the idea that driving is a privilege, not a right.

Kelly Taylor, a senior production editor at the Free Press, is a longtime automotive journalist with extensive experience in advanced driving techniques.