At least give them some new info like now it’s legal to go the wrong way on a bike if the speed limit is 30 km/h where I live. Guess not a lot of people know about that and a gazillion other things.
Comment on Front Brake Lights Could Drastically Diminish Road Accident Rates
cotlovan@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Maybe redo the driving test like… At least every 20 years? There are people on the roads who got their licenses when their town didn’t even had traffic lights. People who never saw a roundabout in their first 20 years of driving.
Its nice that we restrict young people by making them take more and more driving lessons and paying more for tiered licences, like we do in Europe for motorcycles and trucks.
But maybe also take a look at the 70+ year old grandpa who had two strokes and one heart attack, has two pairs of of glasses but his license says that he’s perfectly fit.
Valmond@lemmy.world 1 day ago
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 1 day ago
IMO, the big problem is just a matter of standards and practicality. The bar for a DL is “can operate a vehicle” and not “can safely drive a vehicle in public for extended periods of time.” I agree with periodic re-licensing though; everything else called a “license” seems to need that for a host of reasons.
crazyhotpasta@lemmy.world 1 day ago
In Finland we have this thing called “huoli-ilmoitus” Super useful when you meet elders driving 70-80km/h in 100km/h area.
Routhinator@startrek.website 1 day ago
I have to comtend with 70-80 year olds doing 30km in an 80 while swerving across the midline because they saw a bird across the street.
idefix@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
Here in France they drive at 70km/h in a 90km/h road. They also drive at 70 in a 70 road. And 70 in a 50 road. And 70 in a 30 road…
crazyhotpasta@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Yeah, like if someone crashes their car due their own stupidity, I’m not stopping to help. Darwin Awards and all that.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 18 hours ago
Sure but the second I lose my mobility I will put a deer slug through my head.
MSugarhill@discuss.tchncs.de 6 hours ago
Another kind of solution. But not needed.
cotlovan@lemm.ee 11 hours ago
So risking everyone else’s life around you is worth it?
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
It isn’t a negociation. If some bureaucrat ticks that box, it will just be the end.
Corn@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
Why not move to a place where low mobility doesn’t cut you off from the rest of society?
There’s plenty of retirement communities where you can get around with a golf cart. In the 3 biggest cities here in SK, old folk can ride the subways for free, and sometimes you even see them drive mobility scooters on.
Other places I’ve been have level boarding for buses, but I’ve never seen someone drive a mobility scooter onto one. Certainly it wouldn’t fly in SK.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
I don’t think I could afford to be homeless in SK.
Corn@lemmy.ml 4 hours ago
No, being in poverty is really bad here, but I just picked SK out as a close example, old folk becoming recluses who only interact with Fox News and people serving them is pretty specific to American and/or car-centric culture. Hell even car-centric parts of america have retirement communities where they all drive scooters or golf cars.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I see too many people treat a roundabout like a stop sign when it is clearly empty.
sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 18 hours ago
The couple of times they tried out roundabouts in my area, they didn’t last long because people were too stupid to figure out how to use them. So instead they just bitched until they were taken out.
echodot@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Sometimes you see those videos from a dash cam of a truck that hits a bridge, obviously the truck driver was been being attentive but often so was the recording car as driver. All I can ever think is, “why were you so close behind, it was blindingly obvious that was about to happen”, yet to them apparently it wasn’t, and now they’ve got bits of truck roof in their windscreen.
There was an astounding number of people who really cannot drive, and yet they think they’re driving safely. They just haven’t gotten a crash yet.
catloaf@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Because it wasn’t blindingly obvious? I don’t know how tall the truck in front of me is, and since I don’t drive tall vehicles I know even less about the heights of bridges. Usually commercial drivers are the better ones.
Red_October@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well the thing that made it blindingly obvious was that it was a 30 second video of a tall truck driving full tilt toward a low bridge, so obviously something was about to happen!
helvetpuli@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
If we limited drivers permits to the 8% or so of drivers who are actually competent we’d solve a lot of problems in several domains.
I self-selected as ineligible to drive years ago, and I’ve never regretted it. Of course I had to move away from my home country and learn a new language, but those are the shakes.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Reading all such things I’m starting to think “what if I can drive?” I’ve always thought I can’t, but since everyone around who thinks they can drive like suicide bombers, maybe I should find those driving lessons.
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 day ago
Define safe? If everyone drives safely enough that you are more likely to die of suicide than an automobile accident, is that safe enough?
echodot@feddit.uk 1 day ago
That is a weird question.
How do you calculate odds of dying by suicide wouldn’t they be personal?
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 day ago
The U.S. death rate is about 750 / 100,000 overall, with about 14.1 of those 750 declared suicide (you can never really know, but the suspected actual suicide rate is a bit higher, to preserve insurance benefits…)
The current US death rate by automobile accident is around 13.4 per 100,000 - so, by those statistics, people are already slightly more likely to take their own lives by choice than they are to die in an auto accident.
Of course if you choose to walk, you’re not entirely safe, the US pedestrian death rate is around 2 per 100,000, and that’s with most people driving everywhere most of the time.
Another fun way to look at the end is lifetime odds:
Death by suicide: 1/87 Death by automobile accident: 1/93 (which seems to indicate in itself that deaths by auto accident are expected to decline slightly?) Death by firearm: 1/91 Suicide by firearm: 1/156
Next time you’re driving on a 2 lane highway at speed, oncoming cars approaching at a relative velocity of 100mph and more (50 in your direction 50 in theirs…) count oncoming cars. When you get to 87, odds are that one of those drivers will ultimately die by suicide… there’s a little solace in the fact that most of them won’t be doing it by swerving into oncoming traffic, and the bigger relief is that most of those that do, won’t be doing it at that particular moment just before you pass.
As for guns - that’s a whole different mess, but interesting that the numbers are so close.
helvetpuli@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Fatal motor vehicle accidents are just over 865000 times more common than commercial air travel accidents, but until dash cams we never got to see them, so people think it can’t happen to them, when it’s slightly worse than even odds.