PROPOSAL TO RAISE DRIVING LICENSE AGE

[Jerry_Atrick]

5 hours ago, red750 said:

Copped a canary,

Blimey, haven't heard that one for a while

 

The She'll be right comments means he will probably drive while suspended 

Edited September 13, 2022 by Jerry_Atrick

[nomadpete]

10 hours ago, octave said:

Further technological innovations will lead to further improvements.  This is important because people will always make some mistakes or bad judgements or just behave badly

Quite so, Octave.

My view is that the newest technological innovation is designed to address the issue.

 

Autonomous vehicles will remove ....

Road rage

Intoxicated/drugged drivers

Poor decision making

Tailgaters

Speeders

People driving defective vehicles

 

By removing that last major road hazard ... the human element.

 

BTW,  I argue that ABS does not remove the need to know that ABS does not stop a car shorter than a degee of cadence braking.

[old man emu]

6 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

BTW,  I argue that ABS does not remove the need to know that ABS does not stop a car shorter than a degee of cadence braking.

You are quite correct. All ABS does is automate cadence braking. And for you wondering what cadence braking is, it is extremely fast on-off application of the brakes. Before ABS this meant very rapidly pumping the brakes by foot.  It takes a lot of practice to master and the skill is likely to go out the window in a sudden emergency situation when the brain is overcome by the shock of realisation. And it can never be as rapid as with the automated ABS system.

 

Because the operation of an ABS system prevents tyre lock up, some "grip" is available to enable the vehicle to respond to steering inputs which it can't do if all the "grip" is involved in slowing the vehicle. Also ABS allows the frictional interaction between the brake pads and disks to be at its maximum efficiency just before the pads stop the disk from rotating. 

 

What's "grip"? It is a measure of the level of friction between two surfaces. In our discussion the two surfaces are the tyre contact patch and the surface of the road. There is a number of variables related to tyre and to the road surface that make the degree of "grip" unique to the moment. The technical term for "grip" is Coefficient of Friction. That coefficient is used in all calculations where two surfaces are moving relative to each other.

[nomadpete]

My experience with ABS...

 

Country road. Narrow blacktop. Light drizzle had dampened the road after a long dry spell. I decided not to let the apprentice drive home. I came over a crest at 95kph, and an approaching car suddenly slowed and attempted a U turn in front of me. The road was too narrow for that so the young lady stopped across my path, ready to do a three point turn.

I hit the brakes, as you do, and started to swing the wheel to the right to avoid the inevitible. The ABS acted - but I didn't sense any retardation nor change of direction. I'm close enough to clearly see her startled expression. At least she didn't have anyone in the passenger seat. I lifted my foot off the brake and a moment later the car started to change direction as the wheels started turning again. We cleared her rear bumper by a gnats dick. With only the front left wheel still on the tar and the other 3 on wet grass, we went around behind her at 45 degrees to our direction. In my mirror, I saw her reversing to complete her three point turn.

 

Now before you say it, I didn't use cadence braking. But had I relied on ABS to save us, we would have slid right through her passenger door. In that particular instance it did nothing to improve braking nor allow steering under heavy braking. The only thing that saved the day was my first defensive driver training in which went on a skid pan and practiced the very same manoevre. (Like spin training)

My point is that although ABS MIGHT help SOME people in SOME circumstances, it is definitely not all it is cracked up tp be.  And nothing beats good training.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Static friction( 2 surfaces NOT moving with respect to each other) is generally higher than dynamic friction. This explains where squeaks come from etc. ABS allows the use of static friction, as well as the things pointed out here.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I still say that at some level of stupidity, we should not give out driver's licenses, well not till autonomous cars are good enough as has been raised.

[nomadpete]

OK Bruce. We all seem to agree that 'human factors' is a big problem with regard to road safety. I consider Stupidity to be a significant human factor.

6 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I still say that at some level of stupidity, we should not give out driver's licenses

Now that you raised that valid point, how can we implement a test for 'stupid' and does it have a stupid scale?

[Bruce Tuncks]

I reckon the inability to pass a test involving stopping distances, centrifugal forces and similar stuff would do the trick and it would not be obvious that you were actually screening out those too stupid to be safe .

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Country road. Narrow blacktop. Light drizzle had dampened the road after a long dry spell. I decided not to let the apprentice drive home. I came over a crest at 95kph,

That's a litany of most of the factors that cause a deterioration in the amount of "grip' between your tyres and the road surface, i.e. reduction in the Coefficient of Friction.

1. Country road ... blacktop:

Suggests a road surface composed of small, multi-sided stones rolled into a bitumen covered base. The stones pre-coated with bitumen. This creates a surface with a micro-texture similar to the sideways appearance of a hand saw. Depending on the age of the surface, those "teeth" could be worn smooth on top. Coefficient of Friction - a generous 0.7g.

2. Light drizzle

Water as a lubricant. Further reduction in the Coefficient of Friction - conservative 0.05g

3. After long dry spell

Country road: dust turning to a slurry. City road: engine oil and other pollutants turning to slurry.  Both acting as lubricant. Further reduction in the Coefficient of Friction - conservative 0.15g

4. Over a crest

Implies that the road had a downhill longitudinal slope. This reduces the vertical vector of Gravity, which is the vector that is relied on for stopping. Depending on the amount of slope, and seeing that the change is slope was described as a "crest", the reduction in the Coefficient of Friction could be as high as 0.2g

5. The tyre type was not given. The compounding of the tyre does have a measurable effect. Tyres of a large work ute are made of harder compounds that tyres for motor cars. If we assume that your vehicle was a large ute, then the Coefficient of Friction for its tyres would be less than that for a motor car. I don't have a reasonable value, so let's say that the difference between a ute tyre and a car tyre is "c". The Coefficient of Friction reduction due to the tyres would be "cg"

5. 95 Kph. That's just the speed we want to slow from. It only affects the distance to stop, or reach a lower speed. For this example, I'll call it a mathematical constant, k, and not worry about it.

 

Before you jump in with "What about the weight of the vehicle?" It seems counter-intuitive, but the weight of the vehicle (or should I be pedantic and say "mass") does not come into the distance to stop equation. The equation used when we know initial (u) and final (v) velocity to see what the distance (s) that change takes is:

{v^2 - u^2}/2g = d

The value of "g" is 9.8 m/s/s for a frictionless, level surface. The value is decreased by all those reductions above. So the value used for "g" in this example is

Value to use = 9.8 x (0.7 - 0.05 - 0.15 - 0.2 - c)

= 9.8 (07. - 0.4 - c)

= 9.8 ( 0.3 - c)

 

It's clear that under the conditions described, nomadpete had only about half the friction available to him that he would have expected on a level stretch of the same road.

[nomadpete]

Thanks for the insight into all the factors at play.

 

That particular experience was simply one where the 'good holes' in the swiss cheese lined up.

 

Fortunately swiss cheese has 'good holes' as well as 'bad holes'

[nomadpete]

8 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

pass a test involving stopping distances,

Incidentally, the defensive driving course that I keep rabbiting on about did exactly this. Participants were taken out to a safe bit of tar, and asked to stand beside the 'road' at the point where they think a car will come to rest after a sudden stop from 40kph. Then repeat at 60kph, then at 80kph.

A discussion was held regarding the differences.

Even many experienced drivers had no idea how the stopping distances look from outside the car. Few knew that it takes more than twice the distance to stop from twice the speed. It was a very sobering experience.

[onetrack]

I like to think I've avoided any major accidents by my developed driving skills, but a lot of luck came into play in a number of events, too.

 

1. I was 21 and owned a bench-seat HD Holden sedan (drum braked) and I was out for a Sunday afternoon drive with my then-current red-headed girlfriend - and, in the current fashion of the day, I had my left arm draped over her shoulders as we drove along. I was driving along Hampton Road in Fremantle, coming up to the Fremantle jail, and it was a drizzly Spring afternoon.

There were a number of roads forming a T-junction with Hampton Rd on my left as I drove along, but no crossroads, and no roads on my right.

 

About 50 metres before I reached Alma Rd on my left, a car came pelting out of Alma Rd, going too fast to stop at Hampton Rd - and it skidded with locked wheels to a halt, right in my path!! I was still doing 60kmh! I hit the brakes savagely, with the only conscious thought, that I had to stop before I T-boned the car right in front of me!

As luck would have it, Hampton Rd sloped downwards slightly across the formation, from my right to my left - and with the wet road and locked brakes, this immediately sent the old HD Holden sideways in milliseconds! - with the nose pointing right, at 45° to Hampton Road.

I immediately saw my chance, and whipping my arm from around my girl, and grabbing the top of the steering wheel with my left hand, I ripped the steering wheel as hard left as I could, while at the same time, I let the brakes go!

 

This had the immediate and dramatic required effect of shooting the HD straight forward to the opposite lane (thank the Good Lord there was no-one coming the other way), and then the steering correction promptly brought the nose back hard left - as I did an amazing "dog-leg" manoeuvre around the car stopped in the centre of my path! 

I straightened up as I got past the car, missing it by only a couple of feet, and just kept going, like nothing had happened! I don't think I lost any more than about 5kmh in my travel speed!

 

No doubt the other driver fairly dirtied their underwear, convinced they were going to wear a HD Holden right in their door! But a substantial degree of good luck, fast reflexes and 4 years of accumulated high speed gravel road driving skills, led to a highly satisfactory outcome! Of course, it could have all been a lot different if circumstances conspired to beat me - such as the skidding car travelling another 5 metres before stopping - if the road had been dry - or if I'd been travelling 15kmh faster.

 

2. About 10 years ago, I was driving the Missus' 2002 Camry sedan home at around 5:30PM, travelling up my street, about a km from home, sitting probably a little over the residential speed limit of 50kmh, when I came up behind a woman dithering around in her car. She was wandering all over the road, obviously looking for an address. Next thing, she brakes and pulls over to the LH kerb.

 

"O.K.", thinks I, "She's found the place and is pulling up to park there". So I started to overtake her. Next second, she has her car on full right lock, throwing a U-turn, just as I got level with her tail-lights!!

Geez, I reckon I've cut some fancy evasive moves before, but I threw that Camry to the RH kerb like a desperate speedway driver, to try and avoid her. I was just waiting for the "crunch"!

 

I went to the right that far, I nearly hit the RH kerb - but I kept my foot steady on the accelerator, never touched the brakes, and simply hung a hard left and right to straighten up again - not a lot different to my major evasive swerve in my old HD Holden! I think the only thing that saved us, was she obviously hit the brakes as she suddenly saw me nearly in her drivers door!

 

I really don't know how I missed her - and I reckon any number of earlier model cars would've gone up on 2 wheels or even rolled, if I'd carried out such a vicious evasive manoeuvre - so thanks to Toyota engineering that produces good handling cars today.

 

As in the earlier incident, I just kept going in the Camry, no point in stopping, no harm done - just that someone else got a sharp lesson in "situational awareness"!

[nomadpete]

Not many modern urban cowboys have had your experience of learning early, on slippery inconsistent gravel, at silly speeds, in cruddy poorly designed cars.

 

And I think that those youthful fast reactions probably saved me more times than outright skill, too.

 

I hope that learnt skills combined with better ability to read the surrounding traffic, can keep me out of trouble now that I have aging reactions.

[nomadpete]

EDIT TIME EXPIRED so my more considered post follows here

 

Not many modern urban cowboys have had your extensive experience of learning early, on slippery inconsistent gravel, at silly speeds, in cruddy poorly designed cars.

 

And I think that those youthful fast reactions probably saved me more times than outright skill, too.

 

Modern Grand Theft Auto is no replacement for real world experience. And the present 100hrs logbook is little better than that. Learners only gain a false sense of security from this as parents (the supervisors) will be taking their learners on simple easy roads. A learner needs to learn a lot more than painless easy driving around familiar places with little challenge.

 

Much of my driving skill was earned at great personal cost and luck. Later, professional training helped a great deal. I hope that my learnt skills combined with better ability to read the surrounding traffic, can keep me out of trouble now that I have aging reactions. But I worry about being surrounded by high risk semiskilled road users.

 

Just like flying, those automatic emergency actions can (often) kick in because they were embedded into the brain with lots of practice. Learner drivers do not get the benefit of emergency procedures in real cars on real roads. You can't legislate safety on roads any more than CASA can legislate safety in flying machines.

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, nomadpete said:

learnt skills combined with better ability to read the surrounding traffic,

Those my friend, are the very crux of any student driver syllabus after the student has learned to operate the vehicle under normal circumstances. In the syllabus I plan to write, I am going to put make the first 10 hours all about operating a motor vehicle under normal, dry, daytime conditions. Remember your first ten hours of pilot training. You learned to operate the vehicle, even down to how to sit comfortably in the seat after you had scrambled into the cockpit. After spending those ten hours, if your instructor thought you competent, you soloed. After that you moved onto finessing your vehicle operation, and then onto using the vehicle as a means of transport.

 

My syllabus will follow that style. Unfortunately for the student it will have to include some non-logable time just sitting in the driver's seat and learning how levers and switches work and where they are. Has anyone ever shown you what the correct sight picture is from your side mirrors to observe your blind spots, and how to establish it? What is the correct placement of your hands on the steering wheel in a modern car? Do you know where longitudinal centres of your front wheels are?  What is the best way to operate the steering wheel? What is the correct rake angle of the seat for best ergonomic result? There's more to simply operating a motor vehicle than simply kicking the tyres, lighting the fires and flocking off.

 

Well, I'll write that syllabus just as soon as I get a round tuit. Apparently there are "supply chain" difficulties getting tuits.

[kgwilson]

I've been trying to get a round tuit for years without success so it is not a recent supply chain issue. I almost got one during the pandemic & then just as I thought I had got one it disappeared.

[old man emu]

That's the problem with "just-in-time" systems. Just try to get a disk of emery sparks. They must be making prop wash out of unobtanium. I was lucky the other day. I got a long weight at Bunnings.

[red750]

I found this round tuit on eBay for only $11.44 for a pack of 100.

 

[old man emu]

This is the Royal Round Tuit  which is held with the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.

 

 

Speaking of the Crown Jewels, what's Charlie going to do with all the tiaras?

[octave]

I think the idea of more advanced driver training has some merit.   I do think though that is one aspect of safe driving and perhaps not even the most important aspect.

 

The recent horrific accident as far as I am aware involved the driver losing control and hitting a tree.   Most of us would be aware that in aviation accidents it is not just one factor but a chain of events.  Breaking the chain in any place may prevent the adverse outcome.   If the man had known  and practiced advanced handling skills he MAY have missed the tree.  This may have given him a behavior changing scare or perhaps a feeling of invincibility which may have been just kicking the can down the road to the next bend.  My point is that there were many links in the causal chain that could/should  be tackled.     We know that younger drivers are over represented in fatal crashes and that of those young males are over represented.  This accident was more than likely the result of extremely poor decision making by the driver and passengers.   It seems to me that advanced vehicle handling training is very much the last resort in terms of avoiding this event.

 

Looking at the statistics I understand that in the past few years there has been an increase in fatalities amongst older drivers which goes against the general trend.  I am not sure whether putting Granny or Grandad on the skid pan is the fix for this.   We need to analyze the data and see why older drivers have increased their accident/fatality rate.    The reasons I imagine are different from younger drivers but the point is we need to know in order to fix the problem.     

 

Likewise with younger people we need to know what causes accidents.  The statistic regarding young males vs young females are quite interesting.   I suspect that the overwhelming factors are bravado combined with lack of experience.

 

The question is, what is a good driver?   If the goal is to not have or cause an accident then my mum was a brilliant driver.

 

My son started driving go karts from the age of 7.   From about 12 he would drive around our property in the family car.  At 15 he started doing organized motor sport.  Although I initially taught him to drive he has had lessons with professionals and now at 32 he owns a couple of motor sport cars and competes regularly.  He has taken me  out on the track to teach me some racing techniques.   When he first got his provisional license and went out by himself or with friends I never really had any worries.  This was not because I knew he could handle a car in all sorts of circumstances but because I knew he was not really into showing off and didn't really seem to have the reckless streak that many  others his age had.   Whilst knowing more advanced techniques may be good it is not the first chain in the accident link.    Earlier I posted the the evidence for advanced training making a difference was patchy (look it up folks), there was an interesting quote by a driving expert -   "So you got out of a skid and managed to stay on the road, good for you but the fact is you already failed by being in a skid in the first place"     

 

 

[Marty_d]

5 hours ago, old man emu said:

This is the Royal Round Tuit  which is held with the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.

 

 

Speaking of the Crown Jewels, what's Charlie going to do with all the tiaras?

Haven't you heard about the predilections of the English aristocracy...

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, Marty_d said:

Haven't you heard about the predilections of the English aristocracy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI3DcFfvw4E

[nomadpete]

10 hours ago, octave said:

It seems to me that advanced vehicle handling training is very much the last resort in terms of avoiding this event.

So, would you say the same about pilot training?

10 hours ago, octave said:

an increase in fatalities amongst older drivers which goes against the general trend.  I am not sure whether putting Granny or Grandad on the skid pan is the fix for this.

This is most likely due to those drivers lacking the skills required for safe motoring.

Proper training and regular reassessment is proven to make pilots safer. Why not apply the same to motorists.

Many older drivers have forgotten a lot of the road rules. Many are not allowing for their (expected and natural) decline in cognitive capabilities. Many GP's are reluctant to ground drivers who should be grounded.

 

Advanced training spends as much time teaching safe driving culture as much as it teaches actual control of the car in emergency situations.

Judging by the drift of this conversation, few people have done one of these courses.

[nomadpete]

I should never have mentioned skid pans. Skid recovery is like stall recovery in planes. It is most important to recognise the signs of an incipient and how to avoid it developing. In itself it is a very minor but none the less important part of a training package.

We had three instructors and about ten trainees. A good ratio. In the course of a very intensive eight hour day I think I spent 10 minutes on the skid pan and half of that was with the instructor.

 

[octave]

I am not necessarily arguing that there should not be more advanced training but I think it is important to address first and foremost the causes of crashes which can be different in different groups.  I would not imagine it would not be common for an 80 year old to go out hooning and showing off if front of his or her peers.  The stats show that older drivers are typically involved in different types of accidents. https://dit.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/247330/Older_Road_Users_-_Road_Crash_Fact_Sheet.pdf

 

I definitely would not rule out more training but with younger drivers the elephant in the room is  over confidence aggression and showing off. Any course that addressed this would be good but merely providing the skills to drive faster thinking that they can recover from a skid could be questionable.   The fact that young men have fatal car accidents at a rate many times higher than young women does not suggest to me that young women are more technically skilled drivers but rather they have different behaviors (not all good).

1 hour ago, nomadpete said:

Many GP's are reluctant to ground drivers who should be grounded.

 You are right about that, my father had his license taken away (and rightly so) in his mid  80s and about 6 months later they gave it back.  Luckily he didn't drive for long before he voluntarily stopped driving. It must be difficult for a doctor to make the decision to ground someone who may have no other means of transport.  

 

I think the comparison between driving and flying is a good one.  I obviously learned and regularly practiced stalls.   I did not and was not required to enter and recover from a spin although obviously I was up to date on the spin recovery technique.   My greatest defence to preventing a stall spin accident was avoiding the conditions that lead to such an event.  Would it be good for every pilot to do spin training? Maybe but the biggest bang for the buck comes from avoidance.  A spin whilst turning from base to final is usually going to end up badly no matter what spin training has been undertaken.

 

I think our positions are probably not that far apart.  Yes more training would be good. I would just say that it should be tailored to mitigate the major causes of accidents in a particular group. The biggest culprit I would suggest in car accidents in the younger age groups is over confidence and the feelings of invincibility that the young tend to have and have always had.  Older drivers tend to be more careful but have other vulnerabilities such as health issues and reaction times etc.