Q: Another innocent person was killed by a wrong-way driver in Santa Rosa earlier this month. Once an idiot starts driving up the offramp, there are no signs telling the idiot to stop and turn around. Maybe the signage is too costly? What is a life worth? What do you think?
Tom Lustig, Mountain View
A: The state has been testing red lights on onramps and offramps to try to curb wrong-way driving. More testing will be done, but early indications are that these lights are very effective at reducing wrong-way crashes.
Q: I am sure that the opinion that Pete Williams of Moraga offered recently is based on his experience. And he made some good points. But having had military driver’s training, a military driver’s license, and an FAA pilot’s license gives me a different experience and a different perspective of the cause of so many bad drivers with bad attitudes and poor driving performance.
In my experience of driving in this valley for many years, the real cause of bad drivers is inadequate driver training and a woeful lack of testing by the DMV, including failure to test people to see if they can react in time to handle an emergency.
The really experienced and professional drivers do not do what Mr. Williams says [aggressive maneuvers including sudden lane changes and tailgating]. They know better. The drivers who pull those stunts are people who have just enough experience to be dangerous, mostly 20- or 30-something “me first” male drivers, I think, and drivers from countries where they were never taught to drive correctly.
Yes, they can control their cars, but they do not look far enough ahead for the speed that they are traveling, do not (or cannot) accurately judge traffic, and apparently cannot think fast enough to see, decide, and execute in time to prevent crashing into another car because they are going too fast for conditions.
Driver training schools and DMV testing are at the bare-bones level. DMV testing does not include freeway driving, night driving or emergency situation testing. Consequently, thousands of drivers have absolutely no idea how to handle anything but light traffic in clear, dry, weather in the daytime. They never check the traffic around them, don’t know where or when to look, don’t know what a blind spot is, and wait until the last second to turn, cutting off other drivers, crashing into them or causing other drivers to crash when trying to avoid the bad driver.
We need to change the system to require more education and testing.
Diane Gaskill
A: You raise valid points and have a valuable perspective. The DMV driving tests do include freeway driving now, but just for a few miles.
Look for Gary Richards at facebook.com/mr.roadshow or contact him at [email protected].
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