Forty percent of drivers say that even if they caused a collision, it would not stop them using cell phones while driving, according to new research.
Many cell phone drivers say they would not quit calling even if they caused a crash
Tag: Driving
The Power of the Behavioral ‘Nudge’ – Is it Usable on US Drivers?
The attached article and video show a story about Kenyan bus drivers and their matatus, which between them have a truly dreadful crash record. The story does, however, illustrate the power of speaking up against bad driving so, without triggering any ‘rage’ incidents, can you think of any ways that this approach could be used to discourage people from driving badly here in the USA?
One that springs to mind is to tell a friend or loved one that if either they drink alcohol or drive too fast you won’t ride with them because it is too frightening. (It may be best not to say “too dangerous” because that can be seen as confrontational — accusing a person of being a dangerous driver.)
Nasty Wounds Class as “Lucky” if a Cell Phone User Hits You with his Truck (UK)
July 7, 2017
Given what could have been the outcome, it is still outrageous that these nasty wounds have to be thought of as the young victim being “lucky” but there can be no doubt that he is indeed lucky to be alive.
The incident, a couple of days ago, involved a truck that struck this young man and his bicycle then dragged them along the road, wedged under the front bumper. The truck driver allegedly didn’t know that he had hit anything and kept on driving until another driver, having seen what had happened, pulled into the path of the truck to force it to stop.
When the police arrived, it is said that they arrested the truck driver for being on his cell phone at the time of the collision.
The facts will presumably be established in court, and an immensely valuable law in Britain prohibits the publication in the meanwhile of anything which could prejudice the outcome of the court case, thus preventing “trial by media” and any inability to find unbiased people to serve on juries. Sub Judice (pronounced “sub judiss-ay”) is a law of fairness and all countries would benefit from using a valid equivalent to it.
If the man is found guilty of having the collision while using a cell phone then we can probably expect him to go to prison. The laws and punishments for such actions tend to be much tougher in Britain (and many other countries) than in the USA.
Eddie Wren, CEO & Chief Instructor — Advanced Drivers of North America
The Golden Rule of Safe Driving!
All sorts of ‘rules’ or ‘guidelines’ are important in safe driving but, a few years ago, a panel of British Police Advanced Driving Instructors was asked to decide on which one was the most crucial.
To put things in perspective, British police advanced drivers and advanced motorcyclists are by far the most highly-trained individuals in the world relative to safe driving/riding on public roads, with just one exception — the instructors who train them! Qualifying at the advanced level in both disciplines of driving and motorcycle riding takes a minimum of ten weeks (400 hours) of behind-the-wheel training, at very high speeds among regular traffic on public roads, not a private circuit. And this is done in unmarked vehicles without any flashing lights or sirens. That duration of training is far more than it takes to obtain a private pilot’s license. Qualifying as an advanced police instructor then takes several more full weeks of training and many more weeks as a continuously supervised instructor, to ensure the task is being done with absolute accuracy.
So what is this ‘Golden Rule’?
Interestingly, the panel of advanced instructors said that this concept of a golden rule had to have an explanatory introduction and that was that the most fundamental thing is to stay on the correct side of the road — for example, on the left in Britain or Australia, and on the right in the USA or France. It sounds obvious, doesn’t it? And of course it is, but in many countries that people visit on vacation or on business, there are road deaths every year because a visitor made a mistake and drove on the wrong side. Once this was made clear, the panel was able to focus on a key rule that would apply to and be helpful to all drivers, anywhere in the world, and it is this:
“Never drive so fast that you cannot stop:
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safely,
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on your own side of the road,
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within the distance you can see to be clear.”™
(Copyright, 2006, in North America; Advanced Drivers of [North] America)
There is much more to this powerful safety advice than meets the eye. For example, “the distance you can see to be clear” emphatically does not mean “the distance you can clearly see!” Similarly, the “safely” aspect is inextricably linked to a full and correct understanding of safe following distances.
Naturally, this is one of the many topics explained in great detail on all Advanced Drivers of North America, Inc., training courses.
Eddie Wren, CEO & Chief Instructor — Advanced Drivers of North America
Driving: The USA Continues to Get it Wrong with Roundabouts
Background: Traffic circles — which are not the same thing as roundabouts — were first used in Roman times, for chariots. ‘Modern roundabouts’ (the correct technical name) were first invented and put to use in Britain in the mid-1960s. The USA stuck with traffic circles and in some states ‘rotaries’ (also different) until early in this new, 21st Century and even now some states are still in this hiatus.
Why build roundabouts at all? The reasons are overwhelming. Using roundabouts improves traffic flow on busy roads or at previously-complex intersections, and — even more importantly — they reduce the occurrence of fatal and serious-injury crashes by well over ninety percent because they prevent T-bone/right-angle collisions, which in turn are extremely dangerous to vehicle occupants.
Situation: Many of America’s new ‘modern roundabouts’ — and I have encountered a lot in the many states in which I have instructed defensive- and advanced driving — are usually well-designed, except for three extremely important factors.
What are the problems that concern us?
The first is the fact that most roundabouts, to this day, in the USA do not have what one might call ‘map’ or ‘layout’ signs on each approach, showing drivers well in advance the exit they will need from the roundabout, to reach their destination. It is both arrogant and dangerous to assume that the drivers in any location are *all* local and all know which way to go at any intersection. And given that many drivers are still very uncomfortable on roundabouts — at least in part because of our third concern, below — anything that risks a driver swerving late to the right to take the exit they need, or swerving left, equally late, to stay on the roundabout when they were preparing to exit from it, is clearly dangerous and can cause collisions. Whether or not a collision results, such incidents serve to reinforce people’s fear of roundabouts and are therefore doubly damaging.
Our second concern follows from the first, in that the various lanes on American roundabouts do not always follow a set regime regarding which lane one should take for going left (properly described as being “more than half way around the roundabout”), going straight ahead, or turning right. In the absence of the above-mentioned map/layout signs, drivers only discover at the very last moment, just a few yards before reaching the actual roundabout, which lane they need to be in, and when this happens, yet more frantic and potentially dangerous swerves take place, but this time as lane changes, rather than “exit or stay”. Indeed, at roundabouts with more than four entry/exit roads — and quite rightly there are plenty like this — or at roundabouts where the entries and exits do not form a geometrically symmetrical crossroads, such last-minute lane allocations can be a real challenge.
Our third concern is that we know of no states that are advising people to use turn signals before entering roundabouts, during their journey through a roundabout (both ‘as applicable’) and always when leaving the roundabout. This is part of a systemic failure throughout the USA to educate drivers accurately how to drive around roundabouts correctly, and this failure has left a significant proportion of American drivers disliking or afraid of roundabouts — an immensely undesirable scenario.
ADoNA Training
All ADoNA training courses include full best-practice, theoretical training on how to correctly use roundabouts for maximum safety, and as long as there are any roundabouts near the training location you select, there will be full practical training as well. Courses
Improving the Overall Situation
Around 2006-07, my own concern about what can only be classed as flaws in the correct design and use of roundabouts in America triggered me to start communicating with officialdom at national, state and local levels about the situation, but not for the first time, we were met with what can only be described as a stone wall — a total unwillingness to even acknowledge, let alone reply to, our communications on this important matter.
In exasperation, we have to ask what is this failure to employ the best-practices developed by other countries that have been using modern roundabouts for more than 60 years? Do the administrators concerned bizarrely believe that proven and refined safety techniques are of no importance here in America so they’re just going to do it their own way? I’m sorry, but either way this is grossly unacceptable and certainly gives the impression of arrogance — a case of “re-inventing the wheel but very badly.”
Recommendations
- Use ‘map’/’layout’ signs on every approach to all except the most-localized of roundabouts, so that visiting or inexperienced drivers are not left floundering as to which lane to use on the approach to the roundabout or not knowing which exit they will need to take from the roundabout until they actually reach it.
- Develop a single (i.e. national!) policy for which lanes drivers should use at any roundabout in the USA — based on the geometry of any particular roundabout — “except where signs show otherwise.” Such an over-arching rule would allow all American drivers the chance to understand the benefits and use of roundabouts, and should be in every state’s drivers’ manual, with exactly the same wording so that there can be no drift away from its exact meaning.
- Teach drivers when and where to signal, on the approach, the transit through and the exit from any and every roundabout. It is a remarkably easy rule to learn. Failure to teach drivers this is to treat them like idiots, and if you treat drivers like idiots, they will all drive like idiots!
- Teach drivers that when approaching the yield line at the entrance to any roundabout, that they should be: “Prepared and able to stop but ready to keep going, if it is legal and safe to do so.”
It is a sad but inescapable and relevant fact that the USA is effectively the worst-performing developed nation in the world when it comes to road safety and reducing an excessively high number of road deaths each year. With a death-rate more than four-times worse than the leading nations of Sweden and the UK, America has a very long way to go to improve its highway safety to even just an acceptable level.
Addendum : A article titled ‘The Simple Solution to One of America’s Most Dangerous Travel Problems’ was published by ATTN on June 24, 2017, and relates to Massachusetts. It contains all of the above problems and also implies that roundabouts, ‘rotaries’ and ‘traffic circles’ are the same thing when they are certainly not.
Eddie Wren, CEO/Chief Instructor — Advanced Drivers of North America
Also see our page: More on Roundabouts
May 2017