Do Motorists Really Drive Poorly?

The Toronto Star ran an article today that suggests that people are morons on the road http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/635489

It isn't that people are poor drivers. Its that the driving process, the way it is presently conducted, is designed to create misfortune and poor driving.

Simply put, people get the keys to a powerful tool - the car, and from that second going forward, society creates as many obstacles as possible for the tool to function as it is designed.

First, we have a test to use the tool. Its a test which ignores 90% of the capabilities of the tool or the environment the tool will be used and that is by intent. For instance, driving tests are always conducted during the day, despite that 40% of driving is done at night. Driving tests do not include children in the back seat, nor loud passengers. Driving tests are not done on ice or snow. Driving tests do not test the capability to install a child seat. I could go on.

Second, for most drivers their objective is to get from point A to point B. Once they are buckled into their car, and the music is right and the mirrors are right, they will shift into drive. Fine. Now, what is likely the first thing they will do after they have accelerated. That's right. They will brake. And the second thing they will do is come to a stop. I cannot think of ANY other tool that humans use, for which the default setting after turning it on is for the human using it to place it into a complete stop. That type of process is called conflict.

Third, once the car is in motion, the driver will be overwhelmed with information, almost all of it road signage that has nothing to do with driving the car forward as per its intended use! Think about it: you drive the car down the road and this is what you see:

Click on the above image and make it bigger and you will see the conflict associated with all these signs. These are all real road signs and virtually none of them actually pertain to driving a car forward to its destination! Imagine how well a plane could be flown if the pilot has deal with so many messages from OUTSIDE the plane. These signs do not include traffic lights which themselves often have a plethora of signs affixed to them.

As for traffic lights, what does a flashing green light mean? In Ontario it means an advanced left turn, in Mexico it means the light is about to turn amber, and in British Columbia it means that traffic could pull out from either the left or right side at any time. For heaven's sakes, there are only 3 colours of lights. Couldn't we agree on the same meaning for them on the same continent after 100 years of driving!

And we haven't even covered all the advertising and other sorts of commercial messages bombarding our driver from outside the car, as well as inside the car.

Lets assume our driver has managed to get the car going, accelerate and is ignoring the signs. What comes next? Ahh...our driver gets to dodge cyclists using the road, and pedestrians that walk off the sidewalk without looking. Even wild animals usually know better than to walk or run in front of a train. But apparently humans don't know this rule.

Well what might our driver face next? How about the public utility truck, parked dead-smack in the middle of the road, installing cable to bring the 500 channel universe to our homes. Or a beer truck unloading. Or a Shred-It truck......shredding, or the Canada Post picking up the mail. Would Roger Bannister have broken the 4 minute mile if, on his last lap, he had to run through a javelin pitch?

OK, so our driver is finally on the way. He seems to have overcome the obstacles. As he is driving along at 80km/hr he realizes that there is just one thing worrisome. Other drivers are doing exactly the same thing he is, but in the opposite direction, closer to him than the glove compartment of his own car. He is always 1 second from death.

Given the driving environment, I would say drivers are, for the most part, nearly divine :-)