May 31, 2013 – Driving comes with a huge responsibility. It’s not just about drinking and driving, it’s about being distracted while behind the wheel. A car/truck is a powerful weapon when used in an irresponsible or aggressive, immature, or distracted manner.
I took the opportunity of a decent day to ride from North Vancouver to Chilliwack for work purposes today, and as always, the lack of attention to the road by some drivers just terrifies me. I hate the freeway on the bike, but because of time of day, just didn’t have any other good choice to get where I had to go.
I watched a truck travel from Grandview all the way to Chilliwack without ever leaving the left hand lane. I rode for stretches where there was one car in the right hand lane and 10 cars bumper to bumper in the left. Why on earth does everyone want to ride the bumper of the car ahead when they could see clearly along the empty right lane? I don’t get it!
And the HOV lane! It’s not the “even faster” lane unless traffic is at a standstill. HOV doesn’t stand for High Octane Vehicle lane. It means high occupancy vehicles. It’s for vehicles with more than one person, it’s for motorcycles. In many cases it’s for buses. It’s not a passing lane, it’s not for doing 130 in an 80 zone. It’s to encourage people to carpool and reduce congestion. Don’t get bent out of shape if the driver ahead of you in the HOV lane doesn’t shift over, it’s illegal to change lanes out of the HOV lane except where the broken line indicates that the driver is allowed to do so. It’s not the speeding lane so if I’m in it and going at or above the speed limit, get off my rear tire or make your own illegal move and change lanes to go around me.
Texting, talking on the phone, weaving in and out to get that one car length ahead of the pack and catch up to the next car, tailgating, lack of shoulder checking…. everyone seems to have the false assumption that they are more capable than everyone else around them, why?
I came home a different way, not on the freeway. The route takes longer, the speed limits are lower, and therefore there are fewer cars and it’s a less stressful ride. But even there, I watched a kid in a Prelude ride my rear tire for a time, then veer into the lane next to me. At the next light he sat there texting on his iPhone. When the light went green he took off until he was hot on the bumper of the next car, then veer across two lanes to do the same to another. He went weaving in and out of rush hour traffic, never really getting very far ahead, but endangering everyone around him. All the while, his bright green “N” sticker on the back proclaiming him a new driver.
And there are people who think the graduated licencing program isn’t a good idea? Pretty much the only ones who don’t like it are the ones that are in it. And when I see driving like that, I’m grateful it exists!
I’m sorry, but teens just (in general) don’t have the skills or maturity in a car and restricting their driving while they gain those skills is a good thing. We weren’t any more capable when we got our licences easily (comparatively), but the distractions were perhaps fewer. We didn’t have Twitter and Facebook and texts pinging in on our phones. We didn’t even have phones in our pockets, they were wired to the wall back home! Yes, we had friends in the car, and they were a distraction. Yes, drinking and driving occurred. And yes, people died back then too.
So if we know these things through studying the numbers, isn’t it a good thing to try to address where we know the majority of dangers occur? Some interesting stats from the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association in the US.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety:
In 2010, the latest year for which data are available, motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death among 13-19 year-old males and females in the United States.
A total of 3,115 teenagers ages 13-19 died in motor vehicle crashes in 2010. This is 64 percent fewer than in 1975 and 10 percent fewer than in 2009.
Thirty-three percent of deaths among 13-19-year-olds occurred in motor vehicle crashes, 39 percent among females and 31 percent among males.
16-year-olds have higher crash rates than drivers of any other age.
The crash rate per mile driven is twice as high for 16-year-olds as it is for 18- and 19-year-olds.
About 2 out of every 3 teenagers killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2010 were males.
In 2010, 58 percent of deaths among passenger vehicle occupants ages 16-19 were drivers.
Fifty-nine percent of teenage passenger deaths in 2010 occurred in vehicles driven by another teenager. Among deaths of passengers of all ages, 17 percent occurred when a teenager was driving.
Statistics show that 16- and 17-year-old driver death rates increase with each additional passenger.
Eighty-one percent of teenage motor vehicle crash deaths in 2010 were passenger vehicle occupants. The others were pedestrians (9 percent), motorcyclists (4 percent), bicyclists (2 percent), riders of all-terrain vehicles (2 percent), and people in other kinds of vehicles (2 percent).
Fifty-five percent of motor vehicle crash deaths among teenagers in 2010 occurred on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
In states with Graduated Driver Licencing programs that include at least five of the most important elements, there was a 20% reduction in fatal crashes involving 16-year-old drivers.
In 2006 (latest data available) crashes involving 15- to 17-year-olds cost more than $34 billion nationwide in medical treatment, property damage and other costs, according to an AAA analysis.
Teenage drivers and passengers are among those least likely to wear their seat belts.
In 2009, 11 percent of the people who died in distracted driving crashes were teens 15 to 19 years old. Out of all the teens who died in crashes in 2009, 18 percent died in crashes that involved distracted driving. Fifteen percent of teen drivers who were involved in fatal crashes were distracted at the time of the crash.
In 2008, 37 percent of male drivers ages 15-20 who were involved in fatal crashes were speeding at the time.
In 2010, 54 percent, or 1,532, of the 2,814 occupants of passenger vehicles age 16 to 20 who were killed in crashes were not buckled up.
Among fatally injured passenger vehicle drivers ages 16-17, 16 percent of males and 13 percent of females in 2010 had BACs at or above 0.08 percent. Among fatally injured drivers ages 18-19, 31 percent of males and 22 percent of females had BACs at or above 0.08 percent.
I don’t think teens should bear all the responsibility. The longer we drive the more complacent and confident we all get. Somewhere I saw a study that found that 93 percent of all drivers think their skills lie above the average, and that’s statistically impossible. Obviously we aren’t all better than everyone else, but we seem to think we are. We have all been guilty of calling some other driver an idiot behind the wheel. Ever stop and wonder who has done the same to you? I guarantee it’s happened. We all make duh moves on the road at some point.
The aged point to the young as risk taking and immature. The young point to the elderly because their reaction times are worse. And all of us in the middle seem to think it our right to get where we need to go before all others, our meeting/appointment/whatever is more important. Drivers block intersections to get that one car length ahead because they don’t want to wait for the next green light. Apparently it’s better to sit in the middle of the intersection and block everyone trying to go the other direction. Self importance? Or just stupidity? They weave back and forth in traffic without accurately assessing the risks associated with a sudden move by another driver in the same frame of mind. We all tut-tut the cell phone user, as we reach down and take our eyes of the road to change the radio station, pick up a dropped item, or turn our head to speak to our passenger.
Distraction is distraction.
We are all guilty to some degree. Taking my Class 6 licence a few years ago was an eye opener to how much I had forgotten in 25+ years of driving. We could all benefit from putting our egos away and opening our minds to the fact that we may not know as much as we think we do. We aren’t as good at everything as we think we are, neither is anyone else.
I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have mandatory driver re-testing every 5 years or so. Maybe the roads would be a bit safer and drivers would actually know that the fast lane of the freeway isn’t for travelling.
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Seen in 113 pictures in 2013
Seen in 113 pictures in 2013