Thread: Driver Testing

Originally Posted by Chucaro

Good point, alternatively just ride a motorbike for more than 20 yeras and you will learn "psychology of driving, interpereting another drivers minute body language, effects of control inputs in all sorts of different situations, weather, light conditions", how to bounce in the road when some idiot hit you, etc, etc.
If you are a live after 10 years you have passed the test

I have not owned a motor cycle for more than thirty years and have not ridden one more than a short distance to try someone's new toy in that time. Reason? I felt that every time I went out on one someone was trying to kill me.

I have seen too many old friends and acquaintances limping, missing limbs, or in wheelchairs from their motor cycling days. Go to any historic motor cycling event and see the numbers of hoppies and wheelies wandering around.

My daughter bought a scooter agasinst my advice and wish. I told her that motor cycle hits car, car is damaged and drives away, motor cycle is written off and motor cyclist is in hospital. Car hits motor cycle, motor cyclist is dead.

Guess what, a ute backed out of a driveway and she ran t-bone into it. Luckily at slow speed and she only got gravel rash but scooter was stuffed. Ute driver most indignant about scooter rider not keeping a proper look out and damaging his pride and joy. Even more indignant about getting a fine for careless operation from the police and an account from me for scooter repairs under my business name. Daughter was under 25 then and was on $1000 excess so I told her not to make a claim. She now vows never to even ride pillion again. I had to take him to the Small Claims Tribunal for the repairs before he would lodge an insurance claim as he was on a big excess too. His insurer eventually paid, also with bad grace and long delay.

Originally Posted by Chucaro

The problem John is that if they reduce the sodium then it have to be replaced with perservatives which will made Monsanto more rich and will kill more of us.
Keep it very quite, the do-gooders may be are reading or comments

The vast majority of processed foods do not need the amount of salt in them as preservatives. OK, there are some that do but most do not, and can, and often are, sold with reduced salt (and no other preservative) alongside the "standard" product. One good example of this is peanut butter, where sodium content varies from about 0.025% to 1.5% between brands, or, less spectacularly tinned baked beans that vary from 0.25% to 0.38% between brands (just looked at some of the tins in the cupboard).

John

Originally Posted by vnx205

If I understand your first two sentences correctly you are saying that I should not have an opinion on advanced driving courses if I haven't done one. Does that mean I should not comment on the benefits of adjusting the fuel delivery on a 300 Tdi if I haven't done it to my vehicle? Does the evidence from other people who have done carefully controlled research into the subject count for nothing?

Since you appear to be someone who has done such a course, I am quite willing to accept that the course you did covered all those things.

The problem is that research in a number of countries over a number of years has shown that courses just like the one you did do not reduce the road toll.

If you feel you benefited from your course, that is good, but as a participant in a course, the only thing you are qualified to comment on is what you did and how you feel about it.

Using your same logic that only those involved should comment, then it follows that unless you have been involved in a serious study of the impact such courses, you should not comment on their impact.

You are qualified to comment on what you did in your course. You are not qualified to comment on whether such courses help reduce the road toll. The evidence shows that they do not.

im glad you got somthing out of doing your course but like the driving test, unlees you are in the right frame of mind and want to listen and learn then it wont make a differance. you could just pass the course and not actualy learn or apply anything in the course to real life. but anything is better than nothing.

I have done an advanced driver course and held a cams lic some of the people on my course couldnt wait to show their mates what they had learned, were they safer for it i dont think so. As others have said riding a bike for 30 years has made me far more aware of what is happening than any course.

Wouldn't it be more sensible to teach people to drive before giving them a licence, rather than how to perform routine, simple manoevres to pass a test. As previously stated, 99% of driving skill is attitudal. Over 7,000,000km of experience in vehicles ranging from motor cycles to road trains, tends to develop and hone the 'sixth sense' quite effectively.

Has anyone thought of the other side of the coin, where there are now so many laws about driving that it has turned into a situation where one can never keep up, what happened to common sense?

Isn't common sense attitudal?

Originally Posted by JDNSW

With vnx205, I doubt the penalty would make much difference - it is a matter of the probability of being caught. I am reminded of the case of a middle aged woman locally who, involved in a minor accident, was found to have never had a licence, but had been driving for thirty years without ever having been caught. And when proposing draconian penalties, remember that probably most unlicenced drivers are in that position simply because they forgot to renew or had not got round to it - or can't afford it in some cases.

Agreed. Sadly, whilst ever people think they can get away with the risk then they'll often try their luck. I think that "draconian" might be a bit too strong a word for what I described, but as a society I believe we are far too lenient on offenders in many areas.

Of course some leniency is warranted, such as in cases where a drivers license has expired recently through oversight, but if the offending driver is driving while disqualified then throw the book at them! I struggle to believe that many who can afford to own and operate a motor vehicle can not afford the $25 for a years license fee. Of course there are exceptions, but genuine exceptions in this case I would think are few and far between. Of course the associated issue of such a person certainly not being able to afford a high fine might be remedied by commuting the fine to a community service order.

Like we've already said, if people think they won't get caught then they'll risk it, but also - if people think that if they do get caught then all they'll get is a slap on the wrist then they're almost guaranteed not to learn anything from it.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

A requirement to spend an hour or two with a driving instructor to find any bad habits, or a similar program.

OK, I might not have been clear about it, but that was what I was envisioning from the beginning of the thread. Simple 'theory' testing alone would indeed be quite ineffective.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

It is a sidetrack as you say, and nothing to do with testing. There is a problem how to advertise it - for example, in my case, I rarely watch commercial television, never listen to commercial radio, can't get daily papers, and consign the junk mail straight into the recycling.

I'm much the same, so can I take it from the above that you do watch &/or listen to ABC or SBS? (As I do.) Surely it is acceptable to have such issues as public education and safety addressed on the national broadcaster as well as the other channels? After all, the ABC's news bulletins are all produced locally, why not this too. Also, most channels have some sort of 'Community Notice Board' advertisements at little or no cost, this would surely fit the bill of a 'Community Notice'.

A few years ago (maybe eight to ten?) we had a public education campaign here on merging lanes - it actually appeared to be quite effective at the time. Sadly though, the bad habits are starting to creep back in again - maybe that campaign should be recycled. (And maybe the current series that seems to be designed primarily to cut to the heart of anyone who's ever had their children injured in a car accident should be dropped, but again that's a different matter and I don't want to hijack the thread completely...)

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Sorry about the colour - I thought the red was getting a bit boring - the green was quite readable on my screen!

No worries, I figured it was something like that.