Like most new drivers, teen-me learned how to drive first from observation as a passenger, then by driver education classes in high school, accompanied by seat time with an instructor – in my case, behind the wheel of a Plymouth Horizon TC3, thus establishing a near unbeatable benchmark for performance, quality, and fun that has rendered every car since a crushing disappointment.
Anyway, the classroom and driver’s seat training were 100% about rules of the road and approximately zero percent about vehicle dynamics and any kind of experience at all with emergency situations. At best, students may have been advised to “steer into a skid,” illustrated by nothing at all and left completely to the student’s imagination to conceptualize its meaning. “Of course, steer into a skid, that makes sense.”
Now, if I were in charge of nationwide driver education standards, I would require all students to actually experience skidding and learn how to recover from a skid – safely, on a skidpad, of course. I’d also like students to perform evasive maneuvers, “moose test” style, so encountering such a quick-action scenario in real life won’t be a total shock to the system. I also believe every driver should get jolted by one of those 5mph impact simulators to encourage seatbelt wearing, even though kids seem pretty good about wearing them as it is.
How about a closed-course gauntlet of simulated intersections, pedestrians, and corners that students must navigate while replying to texts from the instructor? Hmmm, maybe not – the kids will see it as a challenge to show how good they are at it. Put the phone down!
Your turn:
What Lesson(s) Would You Add To Driver’s Ed?
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
I think Ohio was similar. You could get the license at 16 with drivers Ed or 18 without it. I’m not sure you even needed hours if you waited as long as you could pass the test.
Texas isn’t even that constrained. 16 with or without driver’s ed, just if you went through driver’s ed you could skip the driving test by fulfilling all the requirements during your hours.
In Saskatchewan when I did mine, as soon as I hit 15 I drove out to the nearest small town that had a DMV office, did my written learners permit. Drove home, and practiced driving for the next year. Day before my 16th I booked an appointment for my drivers exam and the next day drove to the test office and did my in car test in my 71 Duster (318 with 360 heads, headers mild cam, it was quiet at least) scored 95 out of 100.
No driver ed, no supervision, insurance in those days was about $50 per year due to the provincial insurance system.
When I took my motorcycle license my parents insisted on my taking a MC safety course. It was worth it. I’d been riding dirt bikes for years and had developed a large collection of bad habits.
When I took the safety course there was a guy there that had been riding (illegally) for 20 yrs. Talk about bad habits…
Eek!
I came up enduro, dirt riding and motocross. Was a hooligan on a bike back then.
The course taught me a lot and broke many bad habits. Problem was, I was still young and stupid. Took me one major accident and a couple of weeks in intensive care to get me to suit up properly. The next major involved a car and wasn’t my fault but still ended up back in intensive care with broken bones. The third was the worst yet and was a car bike bone breaker and more intensive. The last was me being overconfident and not listening to what the bike was telling me. I ended up bruised all over with a fine selection of road rash and a totaled bike. I quit riding after that one.
Each accident taught me to ride more consciously but ultimately a bike or bicycle will never win against a car or truck, or the road no matter how in the right you may be. All it takes is a moments lapse of attention or events to compromise your safety.
I would never ride today. Too many gigantic vehicles, people driving distracted, and others edge case testing their autonomous vehicles.
I met a young guy two summers ago at work and we hit it off talking about bikes. Saw him again the following summer and he had a limp. Said he got run over by a semi wheel. Still riding though…
So far just one serious accident, followed by a 7 yr break. Accident was in my first year, after multiple near-misses that obviously did nothing to change my behavior.
Now I’m the guy taking advanced safety classes riding around with a dayglow airbag vest. Maybe once a year I misjudge a corner and go over the yellow line. It leaves me shaking when that happens. If it ever doesn’t, that’s when I quit riding for good.
I used to think I was invincible. I was crazy on the motocross bikes. Would do just about anything. We used to regularly go out and rat around on our sport bikes doing all sorts of stunt riding. couple of friends got killed in a stupid accident that calmed me a lot. The last one really got my attention. Dropped my Katana 1100 at about 85 merging onto the highway. Totally my fault. The day before I’d watched a guy get t-boned by a car in a busy intersection. Car driver pulled an illegal turn.
Just decided to stop.
Used to ride horses a lot as well and had several bad accidents with them too.
Seems me and high center of gravity objects dont mix well.
THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING
I’m a driving instructor.
-Look FARTHER ahead.
Some of your natural instincts are wrong. For example, when waiting to turn left do not stare at the oncoming cars. Look where you are going to land.
-do what is expected. Do not bequeath your right of way to someone else. Follow right of way rules
I could go in
my ex used to stop at a controlled intersection where she didn’t have a stop sign to waive someone at a stop sign through. It would drive me crazy because it was unexpected and therefor dangerous! (Coincidentally, I was a defensive driving instructor for a spell)
This is a good reason to end a marriage. (/s…I think)
Rode motorcycles for years. I drive like I rode, like everyone is out to get you. Constantly scan for what is happening around you look for routes watch both the cars and the drivers. Be prepared for anything.
I still possess a perfect driving record.
I used to commute about 20 miles each way on a Suzuki 550, most of it on freeways. It was amazing how, if you’re scanning around, you see the twitch of a shoulder and start planning where you’re going to when that car next to you starts coming into your lane.
Something similar, when you’re learning to fly in a single-engine plane constantly looking for where you’re going to land if the engine quits.
I don’t know if the problem is the curriculum, I think the problem might be: how do you get past the teenage/young adult mindset of “I know everything and am invincible?” I guess these days the trendy social media term would be “ok boomer.”
I think instead, we restrict the weight of the vehicle you can drive to 3,999 lbs, and the power to…say…250hp. 200hp for anything less than 3,000. Until you’re 20.
That feels optimistic. A 20-year-old is functionally pretty much the same as a teenager, on average. Maybe wait until 25, like rental cars.
I’d rather see a comprehensive test for each vehicle weight class, though. Ensure you can handle driving something bigger, faster, or both before you’re allowed to drive it in the wild.
I’d also like to see more taxation on vehicles as weight, size, and power goes up, regardless of powertrain and active safety features. Want more? Pay more. Also semitrailer side impact bars.
That seems reasonable to me, too.
Yes on all of these. Had the misfortune of watching a bicyclist crash into the side of a long dump truck and get dragged under. Both operators were at fault; truck for a partial stop and go the cyclist for traveling too fast in dense traffic.
Haven’t seen it mentioned yet, but I’d like it to be driven home to new drivers that using your brakes signals to those following behind you that you need to drastically reduce speed quickly, or you’re coming to a stop. So please, under normal driving conditions, stop tapping your brakes to slow down gradually or by minor increments. If you glance at your speedometer and you’re going a bit too fast, just take your foot off the accelerator. Your car will automatically decelerate to an appropriate speed, where you can then reapply your foot to the pedal and hold it there in a consistent position to maintain the speed at which you’d rather be traveling.
This rant brought to you by a guy who goes nuts when someone is clearly braking for no reason other than “OH NO I’M GOING 67 IN A 65 GOTTA SLOW DOWN,” with nothing but 20 car-lengths between them and the car ahead of them which is actively pulling away.
Weirdly enough, I wasn’t taught to (nor tested on my ability to) parallel park in drivers ed. Now, parallel parking in the rural Midwest isn’t all that common, but it proved to be a necessary driving skill in places where people live and drive. My boss taught me how when I was 21 or so, and now I get to wow my Bronx-residing girlfriend with my robot-like ability to get into tough looking spots in a single shot.
Also, backing up a small trailer would be a fantastic addition to the standard drivers ed curriculum. I’ve never done it, but knowing how could be useful!
Stopping distances (dry, wet, at max gross vehicle weight)Towing basics (overall length, turning/obstacle avoidance, stopping distance, properly securing load[bungee straps are not load securing devices])
How about how to use the damn headlight switch? I see way too many people driving around completely oblivious to the fact their lights are off or their high-beams are on. Once upon a time you’d just turn your lights on when it was difficult to see your gauges, but with TFT screens being in almost everything and DRLs reflecting off the car ahead, people don’t realize they have no tail lights.
I’d also add basic lane position and lane-keeping. Things like “don’t swing into the left lane to make a right hand turn just because you’re too lazy to give the wheel another 1/2 turn”
Good point on the lights. Some of the lights these days are so intense that I can’t tell whether they are high beams or just badly aimed LED lamps. A quick couple of blips of the high beams usually results in no reaction. My brother believes it’s social anarchy and the other driver just doesn’t care that they are blinding you.
The low beams on my Acura MDX were wonderful to see with, had an incredibly sharp cutoff but I think they were almost too bright for when I was cresting a hill and someone was coming the other way. I really don’t like driving at night anymore with the headlight situation.
My son got pulled over and let off with a warning because he was driving after dark with just the DRLs. My car has an “auto” setting which does a good job of detecting when it’s darkening and also turns on the lights when the wipers are running. The only time I touch that switch is when it’s foggy but light enough the sensor doesn’t think it’s dark and I manually turn them on and at night I turn them off when I’m boarding a ferry (as they request) so as not to blind the deckhand.
how to NOT freak out when a car enters the center turn lane. I”M NOT ENTERING YOUR LANE YET. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT-OF-WAY. Why do drivers slam on their brakes in the fast lane like I’m merging on top of them?
Maybe because it’s illegal to use the center turn lane as a merge lane in most states?
?? Maybe the terminology isn’t “correct”, but we’re taught to use the center lane as the lane to pull into from a left turn, get up to speed, and enter the lane of traffic.
That would make a dangerous lane even more dangerous. I hope your instructor was incorrect.
That lane is for (usually) stopped traffic waiting for an opportunity to make a left turn. If you don’t have room to merge into an actual travel lane, wait.
No I understand, at least in the states I’ve lived using the center lane in that manor is illegal even though people do it all the time. It always bothers me.
In Washington, where I learned to drive, that is correct:
RCW 46.61.290, emphasis mine
Also relevant is the 300 foot restriction:
And I just verified Idaho is much the same:
ID Code § 49-644
Today I learned that the state’s approach to this is definitely different. This video describes my understanding of how to use the lane, which is how it was taught in Ohio. It makes sense to use it to “merge” when traffic may prevent you from having a space open across 3 lanes of traffic.
https://youtu.be/ZRDw6RmQ-y4?si=poXxrJWP5F_HGnuV&t=258
In Maryland, the central lane, called the shared left turn lane, is to turn left off of the road, or turn left onto the road
It’s not called the “suicide lane” for nothing. Lol! And, perhaps remarkably to be honest, I haven’t seen many (any?) head-on collisions in those lanes.
It’s been legal to use as a merge lane most everywhere I have lived.
Edit: Well I’ll be dipped. After a little research, it turns out the rules in Texas, where I did reside for six+ years, are different than most everywhere else I have lived. In Texas, the center lane is NOT to be used for merging into traffic on the far side, but CAN be used as a passing lane. So, the opposite way than what I think makes sense but that wouldn’t be the only time that happened down there.
I agree wholeheartedly with the “car control in low traction conditions” idea, but also basic vehicle self help and maintenance skills should also be covered.
Both my kids (daughters) knew how to check fluids, change a tire, jump start a car, and what NOT to do when hooking up a tow strap. And when they left the nest, their cars had jumper cables, a tow strap, collapsible shovel and emergency blanket in the back.
My youngest just made use of the tire changing skills the other day, and the eldest was the go-to person for jumpstarting cars at college, because nobody else had the skills to do it. (Some had jumper cables, but no clue what to do with them.)
I did draw the line at forcing them to change their own oil, but they were familiar with the process.
Those are all basic skills I think every driver should know.
I was similarly the one who could jump a car in college, over 20 years ago. It feels so simple, but it is completely overwhelming to some people. I was shocked to realize that people don’t even know that. I’ve also been the person with a little air compressor many times in my life. Feels like an easy thing to keep in a car, but some people don’t.
I do struggle to understand how people don’t know how to jump, especially in the age of the smartphone. A quick how-to article or video should get someone there. I can understand tire-changing being a little more difficult, since jacks and the points to jack up vary, but if you can identify the battery in your vehicle, you should be able to jump a car.
Some people are completely unprepared for any sort of trouble.
In college, 50 years ago, I had a car, I had cables, and I knew what I was doing with polarity. Rescued a few damsels in distress. Even got a kiss from one of them.
Someone else had a car, had cables and didn’t know what they were doing and totally fried some poor classmate’s electrical system.
While it’s a little wild to me that someone would fry the electrical system (if you don’t know how to use them, maybe don’t carry them), at least I can understand that finding instruction in the moment was more difficult then. These days, college kids almost always have the info right there in their pocket and still don’t know.
Yeah. I was pretty shocked (ha!) when I heard about it. I mean, jumping a car is about as simple as it gets. Heck, a flat tire means finding the spare, finding the jack, finding a jack point that won’t fold up the car and so on and so on.
Depth perception. The number of times I’ve waited to make a right and people were afraid to pull out even though the massive line of cars was in the far lane is infuriating.
To be fair, when most people turn, somehow they automatically land in the far lane.
Learn how to drive a small motorcycle or scooter first before being allowed to get behind the wheel of a car. It will teach a whole new level of respect for traffic rules, how essential situational awareness is, and how vulnerable you really are on the road unless you practice courteous and defensive driving.
100%. I became a much better driver after I got my motorcycle.
Our instructor in high school had us drive him to a donut shop where he would buy himself a donut, tell us to rotate drivers, then tell us to take him to the next (but not necessarily the closest) donut shop. This pattern would continue until all of us had accumulated enough time driving under various conditions to meet the course requirements. From this I learned two valuable lessons:
(1) The location of every donut shop in the county.
(2) How to get paid to be chauffeured from donut shop to donut shop entirely at someone else’s expense (except for the donuts because, you know, ethics).
Looking back, I don’t know that I would add anything to this.
We must have had the same instructor. I did the same thing!
Don’t speed and stay off your damn phone!
I know they say you can’t teach it but, basic common sense. How to infer and react for the greater good.
You are talking about advanced driving. I’d be thrilled if most drivers could get competent at the basic level.
Proper use of the passing lane.
Right of Way!
Do not stop on a main street to yield to someone trying to enter that street from a side street / driveway / parking lot. If you do this, you are an idiot. The other driver doesn’t expect you to stop. You have to play hand gesture games to get them to move. In the end, everyone would have been better off if you just rolled by and they merged into the next gap.You are not helping anyone.
Rule number 4is “be predictable”. Stopping to let someone in who doesn’t have the right of way is not predictable and therefore wrong.
The one thing I implore young drivers around me: don’t be nice, be predictable.
It’s not even nice. After all the hand gestures and confusion, every single person involved gets to their destination later and less efficiently including the driver at the stop sign.
Defensive driving. The number of people I see with no situational awareness is quite scary.
Skid pad day! Teach the students how fast a car can go from in control to understeer/oversteer when the road gets slick. Then start teaching them the basics of skid recovery with hands on experience instead of just telling them in a classroom. I’ve seen too many people freeze in a skid and hit things when they could have recovered.
This. It’s compulsory in Finland.
Yes! I do this for myself every winter, first time we get something slick from the sky. Find an empty parking lot and get a feel for sliding around again so I recall that stopping distance no longer exists, and what the car does in various attitudes of sliding.
Two parts:
Part one: The basics; traffic rules, how to operate a car, etc. This part should happen in spring or summer; when things are nice and roads are pretty clear.
Part two: More advanced stuff; car control, how to drive in bad conditions, how winter changes the roads. This should happen in winter, maybe in a closed environment so kids can experience loss of grip.
In both parts, it should be emphasized: driving is an activity that can kill people if not taken seriously
Absolutely no phones or taking eyes off the road for more than a few seconds
Do your due diligence. Check your blind spots, look ahead, situational awareness, be predictable
I learned to drive in a small town; same as my classmates. We all did most of our instruction hours on 55 mph backroads with one or two trips down a short segment of highway. It’s kind of concerning how many kids racked up their hours driving the same rural routes, coasted through the classes, then started driving with a “whatever” attitude towards driving, then thought they were so good at driving they could Snapchat and drive at the same time
Of course it doesn’t help that drivers Ed in the US is some driving, with much of the instructions for different conditions coming from a list of questions nobody is going to remember
I took Driver’s Ed in ’89. Instructor was a totally cool guy in his 50’s named Herb. He had us parallel parking like champs. Among the many tips he gave us was this gem. Cover your brake. In other words, if you’re not actually pressing on the gas and just coasting, hover your foot about an inch over the brake. Dramatically cuts down your reaction time and can prevent hitting the gas by mistake in a panic situation. It just becomes muscle memory.
Driver training is so insufficient in the US. I sent two of my kids through the Tire Rack Teen Street Survival course this summer and I can’t recommend that enough. They had a mix of classroom and on-track driving, including threshold acceleration and braking, skid recovery, and a number of other exercises, using their own cars. I sat through the classroom stuff too, and it was engaging and important information.
ok this is awesome
This, the Michigan State Police also offer a similar program, and I’m sure other agencies do as well. I became a MUCH better driver when I started regularly auto-crossing. Any sort of performance driving requires much more awareness of what is ahead of you, not just in front of you; and helps you build a deeper understanding of how your specific vehicle behaves at its limits. I fully intend to drag my kids to a full season of open track days if they ever want to drive, the in-vehicle instructors are great, and they will be much less prone to panic on public roads if they’ve already mastered getting passed by a Miata.
This course is great. I was an instructor one year as part of the local Porsche club putting this on. The kids got a lot of great instruction (well, besides me). It was amazing to see the looks on their faces the first time we had them hard break to feel the ABS. Most of them had never experienced it.
Thanks for being a volunteer instructor! All the volunteers were so great with the teens. The local Porsche club was involved with the one in Metro Detroit too.
I would overhaul the whole thing, along with licensing that requires proficiency in specific vehicle classes, towing, etc. If you learn to drive a Fiat 500, that should not mean you are qualified to tow a camper with a Silverado 3500. And testing should require actual proficiency.
If I can’t do that, I would add a lot of practical testing with simulated real-world situations. A driving sim that includes erratic/unpredictable drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists could really help new drivers learn how to respond in actual driving. And a road course that could allow students to actually feel acceleration, braking, sliding, and hydroplaning in a relatively controlled environment.
I’d also like to emphasize proper mirror adjustment and driving position (as opposed to just hand placement). A friend (who was learning to drive as an adult) did not realize that he shouldn’t see the car in the side mirrors. Whether he forgot the instructor told him that or the instructor assumed adults know more than kids, that one tip helped him go back to the next lesson a lot more confident getting onto the freeway.
I also think that city instructors should, whenever practical, take students out to a sparsely populated area a few times and rural instructors should take students to an urban center (especially the latter). The driving is different, and being comfortable in one may not translate to the other.
the sims we used were complete garbage
legit driving simulators would be a great starting point
We didn’t have sims when I did mine, but the good sims I have seen out there could really offer a lot, I think.
Add? Evidence (but not gore) of how maniacal and antisocial the average driver actually is. I’m not sure if it’s this bad everywhere, and to be fair I live in what’s constantly ranked as one of the worst places in the country for traffic, bad driving, etc…but holy shit. I can’t go more than 3 or 4 days without having to perform some sort of last second maneuver to avoid getting smashed by a rogue driver.
This weekend I had to swerve over the yellow line to avoid getting hit by some idiot that wanted to get out from behind a bus and decided to let Jesus take the wheel rather than check their blind spots. Speaking of which-is blind spot monitoring standard kit yet? It needs to follow the path of rearview cameras and become legally mandated because the average person never has any idea what’s going on in their blind spots.
I also wanted to mention removing the gore/scared straight bullshit. I’m still scarred by stuff I saw in driver’s ed today. They had cops come in and show us Polaroids of deadly accident scenes. I was treated to the images that included a guy that got his head run over by a car, someone that was ejected from a car and died on impact, and what was left of some poor soul that hit a tree while racing.
Why the fuck was that normal in the 2000s? It’s incredibly disrespectful to the deceased to be used as examples in that way and I frankly none of us needed to be exposed to those images. I’ll never forget them, and it kind of bothers me. I signed up to be taught how to drive, not to be traumatized.
I used to work with a guy who was missing an ear. He lost it to the asphalt after being ejected from his car while street racing. I asked him why he didn’t get a prosthetic. His answer was he wanted to be a living cautionary tale to others that sometimes you do indeed find out when you fuck around.
If pictures of people who found out the hard way what fucking around can do is enough to stop others from the same fate then by all means show those pictures. Disrespectful? Anyone who fucked around and found out disrespected themselves, their families and anyone they put in danger with their fucking around. They earned their place as a cautionary tale.
I dunno, man. I work in the mental health field and the “scared straight” type of approach is pretty widely regarded as a crock of crap.
Whom have you asked? I saw those images too and they made an impression. IMO in a world full of entertainment glamorizing fucking around without consequences (or that consequences only happen to npc) there needs to be some harsh counterpoint that real life isn’t like a movie.
Some of those folks were likely passengers or drivers of other cars who did nothing to deserve their fate.
So make sure that’s mentioned when telling the story. It goes something like this:
This is the dumbass who fucked around.
These are the innocent people who paid the price for that dumbass’s poor choices.
I was subjected to a similar lesson in the 2010’s, albeit in slideshow/video form. That night’s practical lesson was my worst ever, I needed a few days to calm my nerves from the paranoia before I could drive confidently again.
I think there are ways to convey how dangerous driving is that don’t involve traumatizing literal kids
Fully agree.
Just because no lane is striped doesn’t mean you drive in the middle of the road. Especially at an intersection: if you’re turning left or going straight, leave room for the cars turning right.
There really should be a lesson on properly securing cargo, both on trucks and in any hatch/wagon/SUV where the luggage compartment can spill into the cabin. Add in an optional lesson in securing, towing and backing up a trailer (in an ideal world, this would get an endorsement on your license that’s necessary before you’re allowed to tow).
As for the exam itself, every driver should take a written test 4 years later. Most people are overwhelmed at 16, they take their license test like a school exam: cram the night before and forget everything the next day. The amount of adults that don’t know what a blinking yellow light means or what to do at a yield sign, drive in heavy rain/fog with their headlights off and can’t navigate a roundabout is astounding and needs to be addressed.
I just assumed those adults were sociopaths who decided rules don’t matter. Probably spell “its” wrong, too, because who cares.
We all know the correct way to secure a load is to pat it while reciting the incantation “Yep, that’s not going anywhere”.
Don’t forget to give the strap a good “ugga dugga”.
When I moved to Idaho, I had to take the written (but not driving) test. The DMV employee was impressed that I didn’t miss a single (super easy) question, noting that she didn’t think anyone knew following distance was measured in seconds, not feet. That was concerning enough before I met a girl at work who thought the correct following distance was just far enough to see the back tires.