...is also true. Always a good intellectual game to play, as it reveals much.
For the fifth time, I am teaching a son to drive. - we haven't gotten to driving a standard yet, but that will come. Tonight I saw the first overconfidence. Only briefly, because on most things Kyle remains properly uncertain and cautious. But he is now overrunning his headlights. He doesn't know that. He gets embarrassed at leaving his brights on and having to be reminded, so he increasingly leaves them off. It's an unlit back road with little traffic. He knows what the allowable speed limit is, and tries to stay up near that. So soon, finding the dangerous to be normal. Speed limits really should drop 10 mph after sunset - an enormous percentage of drivers overrun their headlight visibility. That's why animals mostly get hit at night, and pedestrians have to wear reflective clothing.
We try to impress upon the young how dangerous it is to steer a ton of metal at high speeds, hoping to get them to take it all seriously. But it's not the dangerousness of driving that kills people - it's the safety of it. It is such an essentially safe and simple operation that we very quickly learn to take chances: we go too fast, we drink too much, we adjust the radio and heat, we look at the scenery, and engage in all manner of dangerous additions. Texting is the big news item now, but eating while driving is more dangerous, and no politician is crusading against that.
Here's the problem: We still make it safely home a ridiculously high percentage of the time. So we become overconfident, teaching ourselves to believe, in spite of our best judgement that drinking, driving too fast, and not paying attention really aren't that dangerous after all. If we didn't do all those overconfident things, traffic fatalities would be virtually nonexistent, because it is an essentially easy and safe endeavor. So easy and safe that we don't take it seriously, and make it dangerous.
Young people's eyes transmit three times as much light to the retina as us elder folk. One of the biggest changes in vision as people age is contrast or sensitivity to light. So when the contrast between the cyclist wearing black and the black road surface is quite low, your son is much more likely to see the cyclist than you are. (assuming equal attention. Which we can't).
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt you are correct, but I was recalling research i had read - perhaps a year ago, showing that people just did not have stopping time. I may look it up.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it is likely even worse for me than for him.
At 48, I AGREE!
ReplyDeleteIn the interest of Darwinism, I suggest the seatbelt laws be repealed. Let nature cull some of the folks who don't handle driving well.
The story of the woman late for work because she needed her husband to bring her thru the snow in his 4x4. Her job? School bus driver!
Jerry
I once took a day long or half day long defensive driving course, courtesy of an employer. One thing I learned from the course, which I have used ever since, was to keep rotating your eyes 360 degrees to maintain awareness on all sides at all times.
ReplyDeleteI had never been aware of that driving suggestion, in spite of having taken Driver Ed in high school. Not to mention time with my father, as you are doing with Kyle.
Haven't thought of it that way...
ReplyDeleteI work in the Auto Business, in the sense that my employer sells parts to the companies that build cars.
There is a big push for safety in the industry. However, there's some indication that most safety improvements will result in people being slightly more careless on the road.
I don't know whether the net result is better or worse...though if I read stats about injuries/deaths in automobile accidents, the numbers have been fairly steady for most of the last 20 years. But we've had more drivers and more road-time per drive during most of that time...
karrde, if I begin to believe that the car will take care of me, I'm very likely to do something stupid (and I've done enough of those already)...and it won't take care of me.
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