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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Odmanout -

My point exactly, and kudos to your father.

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.

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