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Message started by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/15/10 at 11:32:27

Title: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/15/10 at 11:32:27

Did anyone else see the news article about the fatal traffic accident in Utah over the weekend where the Highway Patrol is saying it was probably caused by a stuck accelerator pedal in a Toyota Camry? Long skid marks before the car went across the median and hit a wall. Lot of good the brakes did with the engine running, in gear, at a highway speed throttle setting.

Stuck throttles are a mystery to me, although in the 1960s I saw a guy get killed at Mid-Ohio race course when a throttle pedal stuck in an Alfa Romeo and he had his head down, fiddling with the pedal, when he shot off of the course and went into a tree.

Driver training really sucks. We don't teach emergency procedures at all in driver training. All you have to do for a stuck throttle is kick the transmission into neutral, or turn off the ignition, or both. Kicking it into neutral may cause the engine to rev so high that you blow the engine - no big deal compared to the alternative.

Just a heads up for all drivers - THINK, have a plan in mind to deal with whatever comes your way.

If we went about pilot training the way we teach driving, most pilots would be dead.

When I taught my daughter to drive, I took her out on a snowy night to a shopping center parking lot after it was empty and we did numerous skids, left and right, to teach her to recover from a loss of traction. How many student drivers have ever experienced a real skid recovery in their training? Darn few, I bet. And, she learned in a manual transmission car - no automatic transmission for about 8 years after she got her license. She learned how to plan a proper line thru a turn; nose into the inside apex of the turn, reduce the angulation of the turn.

All we typically concentrate on in driver training is making sure we don't go 56 in a 55 zone, and make sure that we signal a lane change when there isn't another car for 2 miles - same for signaling turns when you're the only one on the road - real life savers, those lessons are.

A known statistic is that an active pilot has only 10% the chance of having a serious auto accident as does a member of the general population as a whole - wonder why? Because we teach student pilots to expect the unexpected from engine start to engine shutdown after landing. We also teach pilots to keep their heads on a swivel, and have a situational awareness of what's going on around them.

Darn shame we don't do the same for student drivers.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by babyhog on 11/15/10 at 13:21:51

I agree with you.

My 84 year old aunt had her first ever accident a couple weeks ago. She said the accelerator stuck (no one really knows for sure, but she is known to exaggerate). She went clear through a cinder-block building wall. Luckily, she was just bruised and sore. Nothing broken or worse, but look, it could have been much worse.

Also, last night, I was going out to my new camp. Downhill, wet, covered with leaves.... yep, started sliding!! Hubby starts yelling "let off the brake"... of course I had already done that. I was taught how to drive in the good old days. Snowy shopping center parking lot - Check! Manual transmission (on the column even) before I could get my license - Check!

You'd think we would teach better now days. Why don't we?

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx211/babyhog/stuff/fritz4.jpg

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx211/babyhog/stuff/fritz2.jpg

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/15/10 at 13:38:26

BH -

We don't teach better because we have the notion that everyone has to be driving. If the course were as tough as it should be, a few just wouldn't make it. And, for heaven's sake, we couldn't actually have someone wash out of driver training, could we?

Just a night or two ago, on the way home well after dark, I saw a car pull out in front of me, from a shopping center, with no lights on. I flashed my lights in her mirror, and she panicked and slammed on her brakes right there in the middle of evening traffic. I didn't hit her, didn't even come close. I pulled up beside her (young gal, late teens or early 20s) and told her to turn on her lights. She was actually surprised.

How can you not know that your lights aren't on? Simple, she never looked at her instrument panel to see that it was unlit. Again, when I taught my daughter, she was taught to look at the panel immediately after engine start, to be sure that the oil pressure light wasn't on, that the warning lights for an open door weren't on, etc. But again, how many student drivers are taught that - next to none. Most young drivers, especially the girls (no bias intended, just the truth) probably don't even know what the oil pressure light is for.

I blame our notion of what driving is and what we teach that it is. We only teach the crap they put out in driver's ed courses - don't speed, signal every turn and lane change, and don't text while driving. That's all there is to being a safe driver in the minds of most driving instructors.

It won't change, I'm mainly just ranting.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by youzguyz on 11/15/10 at 13:42:56

WOW :o Auntie was very lucky!!

Yes, I have had a throttle stick wide open on me in a car. MG Midget with slide valve instead of butterfly valve. The slide just.. stuck. Only did it that one time.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/15/10 at 14:01:02

BH -

The delicate question is - Is your Aunt still a competent driver at 84?

Hanging up one's spurs is a difficult decision for anything that we do. But, assuming we live long enough, that day does come when we shouldn't be driving anymore.

Again, it all goes back to society's idea that driving is a fairly benign activity, so long as we obey a very few and simple rules.

We let all sorts of impaired people drive, those too old, paraplegics with hand controls, one armed folks, deaf people with two mirrors on the car (seen a car lately without 2 mirrors?) - all are significant impairments over the capabilities of a physically normal person of middle age or younger. But don't drive with a BAC over .08, or they'll treat you like a child molester. Same amount of impairment, probably less in most circumstances, but society tolerates the other forms of impairment.

Driving has become so necessary to modern life that we accept virtually anyone into the ranks of drivers.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by verslagen1 on 11/15/10 at 14:37:11

Jerry, the fallacy of your argument is people with a natural impairment (physical and/or mental) have learned to cope with it by training or the gradual loss of function. Those that are impaired by choice, may not be able to deal with the changes. And I'm not saying that all drunks are unable to drive themselves home either. Yet very few take a driving test drunk and pass.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by odmanout on 11/15/10 at 14:49:04

I must take exception to the lumping of handicapped people who have learned to control a vehicle in a different way than you or I to drunk drivers. Drivers with hand controls or deaf drivers, or one armed drivers are NOT impaired drivers. Just as you shift with your foot and clutch with your left hand instead of shifting with your right hand and clutching with your foot, so they use different controls. That does Not make them impaired! >:(

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/15/10 at 14:52:59

Verslagen -

I don't mean to open up this DUI argument again. But "drunk" is one thing and .08 BAC is an entirely different matter.

2 nicely poured cocktails and you're over .08, especially if you're a smaller man or a normal sized woman and you have them berfore dinner. To me, that's hardly drunk. It does gravel me how the media and many others equate .08 with "drunk".

The old limit of .15 was much more realistic at recognizing what is drunk, and too impaired to drive.

My attitude is that impairment is allowed, and yes, physically disabled people do learn to compensate, but only to some degree. No one will ever convince my that a paraplegic driving with hand controls only for throttle, brake, and every other thing that the hands normally control can react and make the reaction translate into control of a car in an emergency equal what a physically normal person can do.

The same goes for a one armed person - he/she can't maneuver in an emergency like a normal person can. Should they be disallowed from driving; no. But again, be realistic about their limitations.

I'm not saying to kick them out of driving, just be realistic.

I started this thread to talk about the poor state of driver training and how people often don't know how to react in the simplest type of emergency, like a stuck throttle, because we never train drivers in emergency preparedness nor any emergency procedures.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/15/10 at 14:57:08

Odmanout -

Try driving a twisty road one handed. While the highway isn't a twisty course, many of the moves are the same in an emergency evasion.

Get in a deserted parking lot and go about 25 mph. Then pretend a child or deer just darted in fornt of you and make the evasive maneuver one handed on the steering wheel. Then do it again using both hands - you'll see a huge difference if you really simulate a major evasive maneuver.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by odmanout on 11/15/10 at 15:06:49

I took driver's ed at the age of 16 through the local board of education. There were quite a few of us so they split us into two groups- one would drive in the morning and attend drivers class in the afternoon, the other visa versa. There were two examiners on the last day- one passed everyone and the other failed everyone because he believed 16 was too young to drive. I was in the second group. I took my test again 3 days later and scored perfect. That winter my dad took me to an empty lot and taught me how to recover from skids, and to brake safely in slippery conditions, and made me practice till my responses were automatic. Those lessons saved my tushy several times, yet these techniques are not taught in the regular driving schools to this day, 45 years later.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/15/10 at 15:10:25

Odmanout -

My point exactly, and kudos to your father.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by odmanout on 11/15/10 at 15:16:35

Jerry: have you ever heard of a "spinner"? They are illegal for two handed drivers in Ontario but not for one handed drivers. And you and I comparing our abilities one VS two handed is not a reasonable indication of how a one handed person will perform. The one handed person is used to driving one handed. You and I are not.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by bill67 on 11/15/10 at 15:27:58

When I was young we all a spinners at one time or another,I think a person with one arm is used to doing things with one arm and they most likely are extra careful when driving.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by LostArtist on 11/15/10 at 17:09:50

don't worry, in 20 years or less cars will be driving themselves and accident rates will go down and anyone who drives themselves will be considered nuts or a thrill seeker.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Serowbot on 11/15/10 at 17:29:27

20 years,.. I'll still be driving the car I have now... it's only got 180k on it...:-?...

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by mick on 11/15/10 at 18:24:50

3F3431316B6A5D0 wrote:

When I was young we all a spinners at one time or another,I think a person with one arm is used to doing things with one arm and they most likely are extra careful when driving.

Gort sent me a spinner because of my left hand ,works great, now all I need is a left eye,don't have one of those eather,but I get by,I have been blind in my left eye for 15 years, never had a wreck, I did have a fender bender when I had two eyes.
Oh oh ! I wonder if thumper clone is going to send me to the tall table?

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by babyhog on 11/16/10 at 05:22:42

Jerry, I haven't ridden with my aunt in years, but I would say she should NOT have been driving. But she didn't have much choice, and I'm sure she thought she was perfectly capable. In her younger years, she and my other aunt (her sister) had the only car in their little group of women friends. They drove all the little old ladies to church, to the store, wherever. She was a capable driver. But that was then. Had State Farm insurance for 54 years without an accident. I think that says something. But how do you tell an old person when it is time to hang up the keys? A few years ago, WV started vision testing any time you renew your driver's license. I did it in July. At least this does help catch some older folks whos vision has gotten worse. Worked on my father-in-law, because he couldn't pass the test. Maybe they need a reflex test of some sort. One of those simulated driving booths... see how folks react to deer, children, unforeseen obstacles.... wouldn't that be interesting?

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/16/10 at 05:38:40

BH -

Yep, the worst time of life, IMHO, comes when we have to hang up something we've done for our lifetimes, whether it's driving, riding, flying in my case, working at a job we love, or a lot of other things.

There are no easy or simple answers to these conundra.

But as hard as it is to face, that time does come for all of us, assuming we live long enough to see our capabilties decline. Experience and wisdom can compensate for a decline in physical abilities for a while, but not forever.

Just watch your aunt, and don't allow her to become a threat to herself or others on the road.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by babyhog on 11/16/10 at 06:46:25

Jerry
I haven't talked to her, and I need to check on her, but I don't think she will be driving any more. It scared her in a big way (as well it should have)

Realistically, how long do you think you will be able to fly? What will be the prime factor that makes you stop? Might be something good to discuss with your daughter, so she can "gently" say "Dad, this is the time you told me would come..."

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/16/10 at 06:54:39

BH -

I don't know the answer to your question. For sure, jets and heavy transport airplanes are already in my past, more for the fact the the gov't doesn't give me any nowadays <g>. I'm a long way from affording either on my own.

I'm 63, so I think I should have another 10 years anyhow. All I fly now are very small airplanes, like an Aernca L-16, if you know airplanes at all.

At my airport, we have two guys in their early 80s who still fly safely, but they only fly locally around the airport in perfect weather without any meaningful wind.

My daughter is also a pilot, as is her mother, although neither of them is truly active at it. But I have no fear that they'll tell me when it's time - my daughter especially is not one to mince her words.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by mick on 11/16/10 at 09:58:35

222D212B202D262A2D3A2F2D3A480 wrote:

Jerry don't you have to pass a physical every year ? or is that just for
commercial pilots ?

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 11/16/10 at 10:20:10

Nobody had to teach me how to drive out of a slide. I took my car out to Buffalo Wallow & ran hell out of it on the dirt. Always hot rodding corners & then, when I was in my 20's, I went to an icy, snowy lot & tried the Rockford turn around, then on a wet one, some time later, then, I tried it on a dry spot. NOTE* IF yer gonna try it, make sure the front tires are aired up pretty good...It got a bit spooky the first time, after that, it was cake. Also, knowing where on the road the tires are is important. The ability to dodge a hazard & not move the wheel more than necessary is important. Learn to run over plastic bottles & aluminum cans, then learn to just clip them & make them slide. Learn to run over stuff with the right rear, in a turn & youve pretty got the sense of where on the road your tires are.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/16/10 at 13:03:53

Mick -

Physicals are required for some operations and not others. Here is the basic rule:

1. Airline captains, every 6 months with an EKG every year after age 40.

2. Other commercial pilots, like corporate pilots, airline co-pilots, once every year, no EKG required.

3. Private pilots every two years, unless under age 40, then every 5 years.

4. Sport pilots require only a valid driver's license, no other physical required.

6. For gliders and balloons, no physical of any kind required; pilot self certifies.

The physical for private pilots is the easiest, for airline captains the toughest, and for other commercial pilots it's in between in difficulty.

For a typical private pilot physical, as long as your heart is normal, your urinalysis shows no sugar or albumin, hearing is normal, and eyesight is correctible to 20/30; you pass.

The physicals have to be administered by FAA approved doctors who are called Aviation Medical Examiners. Any doc can be approved by taking a course in the basics of aviation medicine that the FAA puts on in Oklahoma City that lasts for 4 weeks.

So, the docs who go thru that training generally do it out of the love of flying. Taking 4 weeks off work, plus hotel and meals for 4 weeks ain't cheap, and the physical generally costs the pilot about $150 at most AME offices, plus the EKG if required. Most all AMEs are pilots themselves, although the FAA doesn't require them to be.

Of course, the main thing they look for is any heart issue that could result in sudden incapacitation. A pilot can get re-certified after a heart attack, by-pass surgery, or stents, but he/she has a lot of testing to do every year. The only thing that is an absolute no-no is mental illness - develop that and the pilot is finished. Mild depression doesn't disqualify for life, but the pilot must wait 5 years after getting off all medications and cleared by his treating doctor. Any more serious mental issue like attempted suicide or psychosis disqualifies for life.

The FAA has gotten a lot more realistic in the past 10 years. Now an insulin dependent diabetic can get certified as a private pilot, but not commercial. He has to test his blood sugar every hour while in flight and if it reaches a certain level, he must land at the nearest airport and dis-continue that flight, and be grounded until he stabilizes again.

You can get waivers for things such as being one-eyed by passing a little flight test to show the FAA that you have the depth perception needed to make a normal appraoch and landing.

People who are color blind can fly, but not at night, because at night the colors of the position lights on the plane indicate which way it is going, and runway and taxiway lights are color coded, and control towers use colored lights, like traffic lights, in the event that the airplane has a radio failure and can't talk to the tower.

Hope that basically answers your question.

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by mick on 11/16/10 at 22:50:19

Jerry, Basically a yes or no would have serficed,but thanks anyway ;)

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by mick on 11/16/10 at 22:52:39

Go ahead Jerry you can call me a little smartass,I know you just said that,didn't you ? ;D

Title: Re: Teaching emergency procedures
Post by Jerry Eichenberger on 11/17/10 at 05:50:09

Mick -

A Yes or No wouldn't have sufficed, becasue some pilots don't need a physical at all, like glider and balloon pilots.

Simple answers generally fit the simple needs of simple people - another of my father's old sayings.