At 9:32 PM -0500 6/10/01, Phil Ethier wrote:
>Not one Yank driver in a hundred understands the concept that the car on the
>freeway ought to keep a steady speed and let the entering car adjust. I
>would not be a bit surprised if the Yanks on this list have a better handle
>on that, and most things automotive than the typical driver in the USA.
I can't disagree with anything here
Of course, I cannot speculate
about how Americans' driving skills and knowledge compare with
Europeans, as I have never been to Europe, or even outside the USA
save for Victoria B.C. But it certainly appears to me that the vast
majority of US drivers know, in my opinion, dangerously little about
the very basics of car control. They know how to drive the car down
the street and that's about it. Some can barely even do that.
It's no surprise that groups that represent an interest in things
automotive such as the population of this list would tend to be an
exception to this rule.
Naturally, I don't expect the average driver to be able to turn a hot
lap at Lime Rock
but it would be comforting to know, at the very
LEAST, that car control issues were addressed in drivers' license
exams
either written or the actual driving test itself. All I
remember seeing in my drivers' test were questions pertaining to the
rules of the road and basic safety
I suppose there could have been
something in there about 'turning into the skid,' but that was it.
Having said all that, I am not exactly a Bob Bondurant or Jim Russel
graduate, either. (Though I'd like to be!) But I have sought to
learn all I can learn via books and personal experience on and around
an autocross track.
For years I've noticed the little etching at the bottom of convex
side view mirrors on modern automobiles that reads "Objects In Mirror
Are Closer Than They Appear." Given the general lack of driving
knowledge suffered by so many, I've always thought that perhaps every
mirror (convex or otherwise) ought to read, "Objects In Mirror Are
Behind You."
--
Pete Chadwell
1973 TR6
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