You don't know how to drive: as important as car seats

tjham said:

Is this in another country?

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LOL! well the cars are just on the other side of the road.

massachusetts has rotaries everywhere. in fact, if you google "massachusetts rotaries", you'll get the wikipedia entry for rotaries which includes the gif graphic that lovin linked to .

funny thing is, in massachusetts, they're everywhere yet no one seems to know what they're for. :shrug-shoulders:

I've always hated roundabouts - add traffic and it's just confusing!

BUT... well, they just put one in at the base here, in the housing area where traffic is light. Typically, this intersection would have been a 4-way stop. I was so pissed when I first saw it.

I that roundabout. Because it's a light-traffic area, when you get four cars approaching the intersection - no one has to stop. We all just get in and go around. SO NICE!

As to the original topic - I totally agree. I learned how to drive in Alaska, in the winter. My dad would take me to an empty parking lot for practice, and we practiced all kinds of fun stuff. I don't intend to turn my kids loose to drive until they've had the same practices!

And PLEASE can we just get it into people's heads to follow the 2-second rule??? That's one of my worst pet peeves!

Okay -- it's 'Backwards' because it's originally from a Brit site.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/UK_Roundabout_8_Cars.gif/180px-UK_Roundabout_8_Cars.gif

My eyes were all messed up for a moment.

lovinwaves said:

Then again, I am a big proponent for modern roundabouts.

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The problem with Roundabouts or 'Circles' in the US is that no one knows what the hell to do or they just don't care. (That's the case here on base where there's a slow speed & clearly marked one)

The international rule is -- YIELD to those already INSIDE.
That doesn't mean stop, just yield. You can still enter as long as you're matching speeds or sticking your vehicle nose into one.

In a double or triple roundabout, those on the outer edges are usually exiting on the next turn. The more to the middle you are, the longer you have before you're leaving.

I love roundabouts in Europe. A great way to make U-Turns or allow dh to catch up on the map while I slowly drove around the inside of the circle.
I even freaked out some visiting friends from England because all of a sudden, they were circling 'wrong ways' to them

I recently read a NY Times article discussing the mess of NJ Traffic because they're switching from their old 'circles' to modern roundabouts with absolutely no information for drivers to know what's going on for the yield rules. No wonder there are accidents and messes. I ended up with a couple of people angry & yelling at me because I was following rules I'd learned overseas and there was nothing marked in NJ for right of way.

Rotaries are all over Massachusetts.

(Random question; I got DH a TomTom for Christmas. We used it the other day and it mentioned a rotary ahead. Does it say rotary because it knows we are in Massachusetts? Is it really that smart? LOL.)

I took an Advanced Driver's Course as a teenager (after, um, I totalled my mom's brand new car, trying to dodge a hoity Stow squirrel ). I've also completed and am certified in EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operation Certification). I used to whip a big ol' ambulance around Boston, so I'm pretty comfortable driving my mom-car on the back roads of western MA. LOL.


My kids will all take Advanced Driver's training before they get their licenses. Regular driver's ed is laughable.

I'll agree that you should have to take a course for handling of the vehicle and how to react in situations after you've had some practice driving (ie. license for 3 or 6 months). Drivers ed teaches the basics, but unless you've been driving a grain truck on the farm since you were 12, you're more concerned about keeping the car in your lane rather than driving. I haven't taken a course since drivers ed yet, however I do take my truck out in one of our fields once we get 4 or 5 inches of snow, and practice taking it to the limits and getting a feel for how it handles.
As for the traffic circles, we used to have one in toon town, but nobody could figure out how to use it, so it got replaced with traffic lights .

the rule of thumb in massachusetts regarding rotaries is "never make eye contact!". if you do, you forfeit the right of way

ITA with advanced driver's training. I'm going to insist our girls take something like that. I didn't get my license till I was 21 (Johannah was telling me awhile ago how unfair it was that dh and I got our licenses at 16 and the law was changing and she'd be 18, I shut her up real fast when I informed her I was 21). I didn't have anything but just driving my parents and dh places (we were married 2yrs before dh convinced me to take my test!). I spun my car out on a oily road last month and went across both lanes of traffic, I'm thinking I could use more driving training.

As far as roundabouts (aka rotaries, I've always heard them called roundabouts) - I HATE them! I don't think anyone here knows how to use them. We don't have many in our county (I don't think we even have one). But there's a few in Sac and I always get stuck

fwiw, IMO it's a terrifically BAD idea to increase the driving age to 18. Yeah, let's give LEGAL "adults" a 2 ton murder weapon and no parental oversight.:thumbsdown:

I had a bad experience on the way home from work this evening and I wish I had had the insight to say, "This is how I should react."

It was a little after 6:00 p.m., so it was already dark. I was driving on a two-lane road (one lane each direction) that dips a little bit and curves in parts. The speed limit is 35 mph, but most people seem to go 40-45.

I was driving about 28 mph and came around a tiny curve (more like a small bend in the road) to see a car coming STRAIGHT AT ME. The headlights were RIGHT in my eyes. The driver must have noticed that he was in the WRONG LANE because he suddenly swerved to his right (away from me). I, however, also swerved to the right. There is no shoulder on this road, so I slightly went into the grass.

We did miss each other, though.

Perhaps I should have responded differently, but I didn't have time to even think. What would have been the appropriate way to react?

Patriot201 said:

Perhaps I should have responded differently, but I didn't have time to even think. What would have been the appropriate way to react?

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Personally, I nearly always hit the brakes first. Then swerve, or whatever. In any case, I want to be going as slow as possible in case we do wreck!

(That said, I was in a wreck once where it could have been avoided had the guy who pulled out in front of me hit the gas rather than the brakes. He was just completely shocked - he hadn't seen me. But I did nearly manage to stop in time, so I'm sure that had he just hit the gas we could have avoided the whole mess.)

skaterbabscpst said:

fwiw, IMO it's a terrifically BAD idea to increase the driving age to 18. Yeah, let's give LEGAL "adults" a 2 ton murder weapon and no parental oversight.:thumbsdown:

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ITA. MOF, I'm worried because ALL my girls will have graduated from High School before they can drive (well, Ilana MAY have graduated, it depends on what day graduation is).:thumbsdown: Laura will be away at college with no way to go anywhere unless she has good friends or public transportation It's not ideal at all. I would rather them learn to drive and have experience when we're nearby.

Exactly.

funny you guys talk about roundabouts - are there not many in the states? they're a dime a dozen here

Roundabouts are becoming more common in the U.S. but still a new fangled thing in many areas. I think they're more old hat on the east coast and/or in major urban centers. Roundabouts have been constructed or are in the process of being constructed at several intersections in my area. I have yet to drive through any of them and I'm really in no hurry to try because of the general confusion they have caused.

Around where I live (in the U.S.), roundabouts are used instead of four-way stop signs. There's good evidence to show that they reduce accidents in intersections not controlled by traffic signals, which is why they're in use around here. (I'm talking small roundabouts here, not the eight-lane ones, which often need traffic signals to make them safe.)

Personally, I like roundabouts. I certainly prefer them to multi-lane four-way stops, which even fewer people seem to get right!

Patriot201 said:

I had a bad experience on the way home from work this evening and I wish I had had the insight to say, "This is how I should react."

It was a little after 6:00 p.m., so it was already dark. I was driving on a two-lane road (one lane each direction) that dips a little bit and curves in parts. The speed limit is 35 mph, but most people seem to go 40-45.

I was driving about 28 mph and came around a tiny curve (more like a small bend in the road) to see a car coming STRAIGHT AT ME. The headlights were RIGHT in my eyes. The driver must have noticed that he was in the WRONG LANE because he suddenly swerved to his right (away from me). I, however, also swerved to the right. There is no shoulder on this road, so I slightly went into the grass.

We did miss each other, though.

Perhaps I should have responded differently, but I didn't have time to even think. What would have been the appropriate way to react?

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It's hard to say without being there; but thank God you came out just fine!

Obviously, since you got through it unscathed, you did enough to avoid the head on collision... possibly at the expense of "coming close" to other problems like rolling over or colliding with obstacles on the side of the road, cliffs, etc. Luckily you guys instinctively followed American right-hand drive and both went to your respective rights. Good thing this didn't happen to you in a left-hand drive country.

I'm no instructor and I'm learning the stuff myself, so please take what I say with a grain of salt. From what I understand, a common mistake is to over compensate for the situation.

If a car is coming head onto you, you want to change your heading enough to avoid collision. That is, just enough and no more than necessary... let both your driver side view mirrors smash if need be. The idea being to change your direction with a little angle and get straight on that angle. This reduces the amount of lateral work your tires need to do in order to change the direction. While it's nice you get a lot of space between you two, you're making the tires work that much harder to change your vector. Also, realize that as little as there is, there IS time to use so you must use it wisely. Instinct/fear makes you panic and want to get out of the situation as quickly as possible. But your best bet is to use all the time available to you to execute a plan to escape the danger.

Before you turn to angle your vector, you somehow need to make sure you are going slow enough such that the tires can perform the action you need; IE slow down. You don't have much time to do this, but (depending on the situation) you must be slow enough for your intended turn or you will start sliding and lose control. The most efficient way to stop fast is to slam the brakes (using ABS) while driving straight.

With hard straight braking, the car's nose will be "diving" into the ground... this actually helps your turn... if you release pressure on the brakes as you turn. You are essentially transitioning the tires from using all their ability to brake, into turning their ability into changing your direction. And since the front suspension is compressed from the braking, it will help prevent the weight of the vehicle from over shooting the tires (especially on high center of gravity vehicles like SUV's and vans which is what causes the rollover) or sliding you straight into the deadly object you are trying to avoid.

Unfortunately, there are some accidents you can't avoid no matter what you do. And the situations vary so much that there is no formulaic method for avoiding them. You need driving instincts, and some of that can come from taking a driving survival course.

From the brief description you gave of your incident, it sounds like you didn't have any time to brake. You now have the opportunity to analyze what happened, what you did, and consider what you can learn from the experience. Do you think you needed to steer as sharply as you did?

As for the other driver, I might guess that he was trying to drive the road faster than he should and ended up needing to cut to your lane in order to make the turn at his speed.

southpawboston said:

the rule of thumb in massachusetts regarding rotaries is "never make eye contact!". if you do, you forfeit the right of way

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Ain't that the truth! You gotta drive like no one else is on the road. Making eye contact is an admission of defeat :ROTFLMAO:

scatterbunny said:

I never trust someone's signal; too many times they've signaled left and go right, or vice-versa.

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I don't either. I get honked at because I don't pull out in front of someonw even if they have a right signal on. One too many times I've done so and the car coming did *not* turn right.

southpawboston said:

remember national lampoon's holiday vacation? "i can't get right!!!" lol...

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I was thinking of that movie!

skaterbabscpst said:

fwiw, IMO it's a terrifically BAD idea to increase the driving age to 18. Yeah, let's give LEGAL "adults" a 2 ton murder weapon and no parental oversight.:thumbsdown:

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I disagree. It gives teenagers a couple more years to mature (not that many are mature at 18) before getting behind a wheel. Now, of course the 18 year age limit would work out much better if we had better public transportation overall in the US.

I disagree. It gives teenagers a couple more years to mature (not that many are mature at 18) before getting behind a wheel. Now, of course the 18 year age limit would work out much better if we had better public transportation overall in the US.

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In countries in which the driving age is higher, the death rate isn't really lower. The ages just change. Instead of 16-21, it's 20-25. Give them a DL while they're still at home and mom or dad can still take the keys if they behave irresponsibly.

I don't know how much experience you have with teenagers, but I have quite a bit. You do not want an 18 with no parental control behind the wheel. They need those two years.

Raising the driving age is just another example of not allowing parents to parent their children.