Please Don't Kill Me!
Please Don’t Kill Me!
What is going on here? What happened to courtesy and doing the right thing? I’m talking about driving. First of all why, in the state of New York does the Department of Motor Vehicles have such a lame driving test? The last time I saw a driving test it went something like this. You go through the adjusting of the seat and mirrors and buckle your seat belt. The “instructor” tells you “Okay go up to the corner turn right, take the next right, do a three point turn, than take the next two rights, parallel park take the next right than park on the right where we began”. WHAT!!! REALLY? That’s it? That tells me that the state doesn’t seriously take their role in insuring that new drivers really know how to drive. It’s like an assembly line, yea I know some fail as in, “ speed to fast for conditions” because the street was damp from an overnight rain. Perhaps an obvious failure to yield or an incomplete stop. Some truly legit reasons because the driver really can’t drive even doing that lame driving test and others I guess “just because”.
How about taking time to do a realworld driving test, stop the assembly line style testing and save lives, perhaps yours or mine! Try this, drive right through the “city”(population 15,000-25,000), how do they handle traffic, pedestrians, signals and all other distractions. Now go down that busy 4-lane with the dozens of shopping opportunities and restaurants, that’s a lot of traffic lights and distractions. Now on to the limited access 4 lane like the Interstate, how was that merge, did they signal as they entered, did they enter at or near the posted speed limit, how well did they stay in lane and maintain speed once on the highway. Now exiting the Interstate, did they signal and slow down on the ramp and not hit the brake while still on the highway. Finally take it back to a separate beginning/ending spot on the opposing side of town. Next test go the opposite way back to the other begin/end spot. Two separate begin/end spots help to keep the test to about 30-45 minutes long, depending on size of town the test is in.
The other problem is the lack of Driver’s Education. With the cuts the schools have to make it seems Driver’s Ed is one of the classes that gets the axe. The other option is private driving schools, how costly is that? Is there even the option to have the parents pay for a small portion of the Driver’s Ed in school? In New York it’s either 25 hours of Driver’s Ed or a 5-hour pre-licensing course? You may say, “Well the parents can teach the teen how to drive”. Really? I mean Really? Do as I say not as I do? I do still have hope the teen will find the proper guidance. One good thing is the required supervised driving hours has been increased from 20 to 50 hours with 15 hours after sunset before you can schedule a road test. You hope the parent or guardian is honest when they fill out the required form certifying the 50 hours were completed. Let’s hope it’s only one person that is supervising as not to get too confused with more that one persons version of proper driving ability and etiquette.
Til next time drive/ride safe.
RobKW
