Month: May 2019

The Latest Cars can NOT Drive Themselves!

If you are feeling drowsy, please don’t trust your car’s gadgets. They are nowhere close to that extent of trust yet…

Overestimating what your latest car can do is a terrifyingly good way to kill yourself or somebody else.

Even driving with one hand off the wheel increases reaction time and reduces a driver’s ability to respond to a sudden crisis such as a front tire blowout, but this driver was way down the ladder from that! (Copyright image, 2019.)
!

American Drivers aren’t Horny Enough!

Yes, the title contains innuendo but for a serious reason!

If those killed by motor vehicles in parking lots, etc., are included, then over 40,000 people are killed each year in vehicular collisions in the USA [NSC]. By comparison, ‘road rage causes a relatively small… percentage of fatalities on U.S. roadways, linked to 467 fatal crashes in 2015‘ which is roughly 1.2 percent of all crash deaths and 2.7 percent of all homicides.

A standard symbol for the horn — a bugle — in the middle of the steering wheel, but most countries except the USA have made the horn control much more accessible to drivers’ thumbs so that nobody need ever leave go of the wheel to use the horn… an obvious safety advantage. (Copyright image, 2019.)
Continue reading “American Drivers aren’t Horny Enough!”

USA: Buses Letting People Get Off Into Danger

Would YOU, as a driver, unfailingly be expecting people to get off the blue bus in these photos, into the right-hand lane in front of you?

A few days ago, while we were running an advanced driving course in Albany, NY, we saw a bus stop in the second lane from the curb to let people get off, and it was horrifying to watch. Fortunately, no vehicles came.

This is where the CDTA bus stopped — you can clearly see the edge of the open door. The asphalt between it and the curb appears to be a regular lane, for traffic going straight ahead or turning right, and on other occasions we have certainly seen it used in that way. See the continuing sequence of photographs below. (Copyright image, 2019.)
Continue reading “USA: Buses Letting People Get Off Into Danger”