Thread: Will Defender be eliminated by "Regulations" in Aus?

Originally Posted by gruntfuttock

I would like to see all young drivers learn to drive in an old car, crash gearbox and mechanical brakes. They would quickly learn to "read the road" rather than let the car do it.

Sigh - if only that were true. Shame that rules out most drivers under 30 these days.

Arhhh - the good old days.

When I was learning to drive in the late sixites guys like you lot would have been saying I should have been learning to drive on cars that had rod operated brakes on the rear wheels only and mixture and timing controls on the steering wheel or better still the tiller.

Sorry the point is just not relevant.

Garry

Have to agree with Garry

If we want to keep our kids alive and healthy, they should probably be driving the newest car in the family, the one with all the safety features. Just perhaps not one of the most powerful or hi-performance types.

Diana

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

If we want to keep our kids alive and healthy, they should probably be driving the newest car in the family, the one with all the safety features.

Keeping them alive is one thing, and no-one will disagree with that.

Keeping them alive in spite of themselves is a whole other problem. All the technology in the world will not save a driver with the wrong attitude.

Originally Posted by FeatherWeightDriver

Keeping them alive is one thing, and no-one will disagree with that.

Keeping them alive in spite of themselves is a whole other problem. All the technology in the world will not save a driver with the wrong attitude.

And they will probably exclude themselves from the gene pool, hopefully without taking one of us with them.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

And they will probably exclude themselves from the gene pool, hopefully without taking one of us with them.

It is the second bit that worries me!

Originally Posted by garrycol

Arhhh - the good old days.

When I was learning to drive in the late sixites guys like you lot would have been saying I should have been learning to drive on cars that had rod operated brakes on the rear wheels only and mixture and timing controls on the steering wheel or better still the tiller.

Sorry the point is just not relevant.

Garry

The point I am making is that whilst it is good to have all these safety items on the car, and they do save lives, may young people rely on them for their every day driving. While if you learn on a car that you have to read the road and drive accordingly to the conditions then when an accident does occur you will have a better chance of coming out the other side alive as the safety features are exactly that for safety, not a crutch or a tool to turn a bad driver into a good one.

I am not saying that all these safety features should not be available or be used. Just that learning on an earlier model will make you read the road better. I have seen first hand many many accidents where young people have been driving using the safety features as a normal driving tool and unfortunately the end result was generally not very nice.

I think it is great that we have all of these things to protect our lives, but at the end of the day no matter what you drive or just how many wheels you have on the road, it all boils down to a small amount of rubber in contact with the ground, and if you are driving like a bat out of hell and you hit a patch of ice, and the car ends up so far down a cliff that the rescuers have to think twice about how or if they are going to recover the body, let alone the car then I think a few hours learning on how to handle a car properly is worth the effort. (This example I saw first hand and I knew the driver who happened to have an attitude that these safety features are there to help him drive faster)

Isn't that what advanced driving schools are all about? Don't they disable the safety features on a car to show you how a car will react if these safety features are not on a car? They certainly are not for not using them, far from it, however driver awareness is probably much understated and it is not by giving someone a car that "will drive itself" (and this may happen sooner than we think) that somebody becomes a great driver.

You may disagree with what I have said and say it is "irrelevant" and that is your right and I respect that, I may not agree with it, but it is your opinion and you have every right to have it as I do mine.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Have to agree with Garry

If we want to keep our kids alive and healthy, they should probably be driving the newest car in the family, the one with all the safety features. Just perhaps not one of the most powerful or hi-performance types.

Diana

I'll second that