Age definitely affects driving:
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In addition to developing bad habits, it seems that there are too many people on the road who put almost no thought process into the things that they do. As but one example, think about how often you have seen cars parked on the shoulder of an expressway, about 1 footâor less!âfrom speeding traffic, despite the fact that there is about 4 feet additional paved space to their right.
Then, in addition to flinging their door open in the path of traffic, some of these dullards will proceed to change a driver-side tire while essentially squatting in the right lane. How can people be so dense that they donât realize the importance of getting as far away as possible from traffic?
However, I also have to point out that a driving test is unlikely to address a point such as this, so we have to rely on people having common sense and actually engaging their thought process before doing something that is both stupid and dangerous.
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Not sure thatâll work. Many drivers whoâve developed bad habits can probably hide them during a road test. Difficult to hide physical and mental disabilities though.
Isnât there a saying . . . ?
âCommon sense isnât so commonâ
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âCommon sense isnât so commonâ
Not near as common as it used to be.
Yes, even if someoneâs screen name appears to claim that he/she possesses that quality.
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Itâs been quite awhile since weâve heard him toot his own horn 
I wonder what heâs been up to
But Iâm not going to lose any sleep over it, either
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Itâs the equivalent of âIâve got the greatest brain and greatest memory.â Neither is true.
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Itâs actually painful to see a person demonstrate his/her deep-seated inferiority complex through constant boasting. I think itâs⊠sadâŠ
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Except that in many cases, they donât realize theyâre bad habits. They arenât intentionally being road hazards, but they donât take driving seriously enough to recognize that they are. Such problems could be caught in re-tests.
On the common sense thing, I had an interesting conversation around a campfire at an airshow a couple of years ago. After the usual round of âwhat do you do for a livingâ stuff, I learned heâs a retired electrical engineer who designed antennas for military planes. We were talking politics (hey, he started it) and he said at one point âwell intuitively I thinkâŠâ and started espousing his views on economic policy.
I pointed out that intuitively, if you want a better signal you build a longer antenna, and no matter what, extra length makes the reception better. But counter-intuitively, in reality if you want a better signal sometimes the shorter antenna works better because its length vs the wavelength of what youâre trying to receive is the proper ratio. If your 1/2-wave antenna is 2 feet tall, then replacing it with a 2.5 foot tall stick of metal isnât going to make things better even though intuitively it should. And if someone cuts an inch off of that 2 foot antenna, youâre better off snipping it down to 1 foot than replacing it with a 2.5 foot one. He agreed with that assessment, and I pointed out that he was qualifived to say whether I was right (if imprecise) or not because he went to school and learned how antennas work. Heâs an expert and it would be insulting for a layman to come up to him and tell him heâs designing his antennas all wrong because intuitively the antenna should be âlike this!â
Our intuition is valuable in certain situations. We evolved intuition as a survival mechanism. It allowed us to intuit from seemingly irrelevant data such as bird behavior that thereâs a lion in those bushes even though we canât see, hear, or smell it. Staying away from the bushes kept us from getting eaten, and the people who were genetically predisposed toward intuiting lion activity got to pass their genes on because they werenât in the belly of a predator.
But intuition as with many evolutionary mechanisms that came about when we were still running around on the plains thinking the rock was the ultimate megaweapon, can short-circuit itself in modern life. And thatâs the general problem with a lot of our discussions in modern society.
We trust our intuition when our intuition is often wrong. We fail to realize that just because an expert who has devoted their life to studying a subject says something about that subject that we donât understand, that does not mean our intuitive understanding of that subject is more valid. Well, for example, the Theory of Relativity is not intuitable, and common sense would say that no matter how fast something is moving, it stays the same size, and that it experiences the same passage of time as something thatâs moving much slower (i.e., something traveling for a year at light speed would age just as much as something traveling for a year at 50mph). Common sense would, of course, be dead wrong because common sense is not a replacement for expertise.
We really need to get back to listening to experts when we have questions about a given field of study. Iâm thoroughly tired of hearing âwell my common sense / my intuition / my âgarage logicâ saysâŠâ I donât care. Itâs probably wrong, because âcommon senseâ as applied today is just another way of saying âI havenât learned jack about this, but Iâve got an opinion about it anyway, and because it makes sense to me, my opinion is Fact!â
TrueâŠbut a lot of people do. I know many people who just donât use signals at all- EVER. They think itâs stupid. But they do know itâs the law.
I think some people have a better antenna system though. In our self-defense class for our female staff, the experts taught to listen to your intuition. If you sense a situation is unsafe, then avoid it. Donât be afraid of offending someone. If someone comes up to you on a dark street and wants the time, donât be afraid to keep your social distance from them. Might be wrong but better wrong than robbed and beaten. Life in the big city. Back to bumper cars.
Yeah, sure. In my younger, slimmer days when I was still involved in martial arts, I taught the same thing. But in that case, listening to your intuition is at worst going to result in nothing happening. If you feel skeevy about going into that parking garage and you decide not to, itâs not going to hurt you even if your intuition is wrong. And if your intuition is right, then you just avoided a bad situation.
But the cases in which listening to your intuition can at worst result in a neutral outcome arenât universal, and when you find a situation where wrong intuition leads to a negative outcome (for example people intuiting that the world is very big and people are very small and therefore we cannot possibly have any impact on the environment), thatâs a situation where if you had listened to the experts we wouldnât have superfund sites and we wouldnât be burning through the Greek alphabet to name hurricanes after running out of regular names.
Ahh gone are the days when all vehicles had to have real steel bumpersâŠwith that said,no you werenât brought up to be an idiot. Not even close. Its just that you need to keep aware of how things change.once upon a time when I parked my 1976 ford 4x4 crew cab truck downtown to go dancing in a club with my girl while I was inside a guy rudely parked his "fancy"new Cadillac 2 inches off my front bumper. My back end was against a building wall so there was no way for me to get out. It is considered very rude to box or block someoneâs car in this way. Ok nowadays with cars having literally plastic bumpers backed by styrofoam as well as hypersensitive computer sensors in those bumpers if you nudge a car the wrong way you could shift the body enough to total out the car because they have soft crumple zones. Not only that but you very well could set off a sensor causing the airbags to activate and in some cars like mine there are as many as 9 airbags to turn the inside of the car into a kanolli. At which time you just became responsible for costing that vehicle owner about $10000.00 because thatâs what it will cost to replace all the airbags that blew and the safety panels they hide under as you cannot just stuff them back in their pockets nd head off down the road. The panels they hide under are break away panels that also have to be replaced and once all that is done you have to connect to the onboard computer and give it a very specific code to get it to reset and allow the car to start and be drivable. Plus now the computer has a permanent accident that triggered the airbags which instantly drops the value of the car by up to $5000 on resell/equity value. All of this you are liable for and will be required to pay OUT OF your own pocket because your car insurance will not cover you intentionally ânudgingâ another car. Plus your insurance cost will go up and if they are real nasty about the whole ordeal you could very well have your license revoked because you deliberately came in contact with another vehicle which in most states it is reckless driving. So yes the consequences of those damn plastic bumpers could end up with you in alot of trouble. My situation with the guy with the cadillac ended with police coming, and the officerâs response to me was âwell the guy is being a total assholeâŠso if it was me Iâd shove his car right across the street with my truck and right into that pondâŠBUT Iâd make sure any presiding officers on the scene were long gone before i did so. " I quietly nodded and sat there in my truck and watched those 2 officers warn the guy that he really should stop being a jerk and move his car. After all the kid has 1 hell of a big truck. Who knows what he might do after we leave. Then they got in their car and waved at me as they drove away. I watched as their car turned the next corner and went out of sight and i turned to the guy and said ok this your only warning.move the car or I will!! He said you do and Iâll sue your ass. I shut the door of my truck started it up rolled the window down and saidâ sue me for what? Those officers are currently writing up the report theyâll turn in saying your car ended up in the pond because you were driving drunk!! I was never here!! And I shoved his cadillac acrossed the street and over the 20 foot drop directly into the deep end of the pond, then went on home. Lol probably the most rewarding police experience Iâve ever had.
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Your right it is no big deal!! Your didnât stomp on the gas. Just kissed the car without any damage or bumper scuff. You learned to drive when bumpers were for bumping and we would bumped into or out of spaces. From what you wrote. I guess you would still bump into a parking space and not drive around the block 3 times. Also give love taps to leave a tight spot without leaving car parts in the street. . Look how young people drive now so many cars all dented and scuffed. Your not stupid or a bad person. I would have no prblem letting you drive my Escape from a tight parking space. If your that old school you could enjoy a cigarette while tapping your way out.
I hope you donât actually park like this. If I caught you doing this to my car, you wouldnât be happy.
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I would also find a spot that my car fit into. Rear view cameras make parking without bumping another car a breeze. Also, scuffing another carâs bumper wil cost you lot if the other carâs owner files a report with his and your insurer.
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Yes, and Iâll add with todayâs cars having backup cameras / 360 cameras, and sonar that beeps at you the closer you get to something, itâs fairly inexcusable.
It shouldnât
Iâm in my mid 40âs , and I was taught that if you were to hit someone elseâs car, the mistake is on you, and you are responsible for any damages.
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If either of my vehicles was lightly bumped into, front or rear bumper, there would be no damage beyond perhaps a little paint transfer from the other car to my carâs bumper, easily removed. But newer cars, the bumpers are not nearly as robust. Even a minor parking âkissâ can cause pretty expensive to repair damage. The other issue is the wide variety of what level of visual imperfection is acceptable or not. Some folks (me for example) wouldnât even notice a minor glitch to a bumperâs appearance; otherâs would insist the bumper be repaired to exactly the same as it appeared new. I expect insurance companies and body repair shops face this issue every day.
This is really an old discussion but yeah with the painted bumpers, all contact needs to be avoided. Even if there is no scratch, the bumpers can crack. A few months ago I backed out of a stall and a pick up backed out across the street at the same time. We met in the middle. No problem for the pick up and I couldnât see much damage on my painted bumper but did rewire some polishing. Maybe 2 mph. Thrills of diagonal parking and limited visibility. I came ou5 of the barber shop and he came out of the bar so who knows who got there first. Just glad his truck was ok so I didnât have to argue with the big guy.