Thought this thread was dead,are we running out of things to discuss?I believe anything started in March 2009,should be pretty well covered by now-Kevin
No, I have just started to teach my teen to drive. She is not very eager, which is both good and bad. 1st day she started walking towards the driver door, I told her you are at the right place, just pop the hood and come back here in the front so I can show you the car 
Car Talk recently featured this thread on their page when you log out. So, I and several others took that as an invitation to post, Kevin.
It seemed to be part of a minor program for teen-age drivers.
If the staff changes their mind, they have the capacity to lock the thread.
Different people have different views on older postings. Once, on a forum involving the Atkins diet there was a posting on the front page of the drug interactions page. It involved dangerous mis-information on a common drug. I posted the corrected information and a not totally wise moderator took me to task for that posting. I had paid no attention to the date of the posting, because it was on the first index page of that sub-forum. I Just knew it had harmful information on it.
Clearly, I never posted on that forum again. We all have our own foibles and hang-ups, but as a moderator you should not be harassing posters over them.
I moderate several boards. If someone digs up an ancient posting and has something to add to it, so much the better.
Another thought for teen or beginning drivers. There are things called “close calls”. That means where you ALMOST had a wreck. And, your sudden reaction, or that of another driver, helped by the skin of your teeth avoid an accident.
Here is my own rule of thumb. CLOSE CALLS ARE STATISTICAL PREDICTORS OF ACCIDENTS.
After a certain number of close calls, you WILL have an accident no matter how good you think you are. And, even if the other person is charged for the accident, in most cases your own driving patterns can help avoid such accidents. YOU MUST DRIVE YOUR CAR SO OTHER PEOPLE CAN’T OR AT LEAST WON’T HIT YOU. It is called defensive driving.
One of my sisters had a lot of wrecks. In each case, she insisted that somehow it was the other person’s fault, even when she got charged. She was a lousy driver.
In any wreck, even if you are not charged, when you analyze it, almost always you can find something reasonable you might have done to avoid it. If nothing else, driving just a bit slower in congested conditions, might have given enough space to a driver who made a mistake so you did not collide.
The first serious wreck I was involved in for over 30 years, in 1998, involved a four car smashup on I-35 low in Austin. Cars stopped suddenly, The car ahead of me got stopped. So did I. And, so did the car behind me. The car behind him did not, and my guess is he was on his phone at the time.
My mistake was being on I-35 low. There are whoop-te-doos and you can’t see those cars stopping ahead very far. Now, I go on I-35 high and have had no more problems at all. I was not legally responsible for the wreck, but it was my bad decision that put me there.
I have a healthy respect for statistics and random clusters. Random events happen in clusters which is more random than a linear event. So you might have three near misses in the same day and then nothing for a month. Don’t know what that has to do with anything but I like to hear myself talk.
I agree with @irlandes about being in the wrong place
On the way home, there are certain lanes in which the other drivers just can’t make up their mind what they want to do. After awhile, you just figure out which lanes to avoid.
Nothing wrong with an old thread@irlandes.I just wish Tom and Ray would post something current,it was lauded like a gosh moment(and I agree wholeheartedly about being in the wrong place-found out I-81 is best avoided a lot of times) as an aside way do people seem to think interstate saves so much time when the safer less conjested roads may take 3-4 minutes longer? -Kevin
Someone up there mentioned the benefits of growing up on a farm and I will add another note to this saga and say that in rural areas where everyone knows everyone kids learn that it is unlikely that they can get away with much since someone will call dad and fill him in before they can get home. I was once stopped by the police and escorted to the family store and turned over to my dad. I wished that I had gotten a ticket instead.
Bing, I am not sure what you meant in your posting. But, if we differ, it is probably that I do not consider close calls to be random events, but careless or poor driving on my part
I am well aware that hypothetically close calls can be caused by a driving error by another driver. Defensive driving, to me, means allowing for errors by other people and doing my part to avoid even a close call by how I drive.
Normally, in the US, I have no close calls (except maybe when I first cross back from Mexico after an extended stay. And, that has included 11,000 miles in 59 days a few years ago.
When I first came to Mexico, the first year, I had many close calls. All because I was not used to the driving culture. Gradually, my close calls were reduced, until now it is common to be here 9 or 10 months with no close calls.
My advice to young drivers is, you cannot just drive your car and assume everyone else is going to drive without any errors. You must allow for errors by others. That takes practice and it takes thought.
The example I gave was that in some cases you might have to drive more slowly to give an erring driver some extra room that you would not have to give if you could safely assume everyone would drive without errors.
If you and your girlfriend are dead, it matters little if the other driver is charged with the accident.
I just like to talk about random clusters as part of statistical events.
I think you are too hard on yourself. No matter how cafeful one is, everyone makes mistakes or are the beneficiary of others mistakes. By being a defensive driver, you are just trying to make sure that you and the other driver don’t make the same mistake at the same time. All it takes is one of the two avoiding the others mistake. Sometimes it just can’t be avoided though.
When i’m walking in a parking lot, I watch for back-up lights or engines running. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people just walk right behind a car with the back-up lights on. Maybe they don’t even know what they are or are just in a daze. At any rate the most manueverable should give way to the least, which means peds should watch for cars a little too.
Apparently it is teen driver safety week. So maybe they should compile all the comments on this page into a useful memo of some type.
Yup. The polite ones will nod their head while thinking about Friday night and the impolite ones will just be texting away on their phones the whole time. Main thing is to keep them alive one way or another until they age a little.
I see far too many drivers looking left while turning right. The young driver who rear ended another vehicle was fortunate. It could have been a pedestrian, skater/skateboarder, or “wrong way” cyclist.
“I see far too many drivers looking left while turning right”.
@sgtrock21-- good point. I was walking across campus and had to cross the main drive which is one way. I looked the direction the cars would be coming and seeing none, walked right into a coed on a bicycle who was going the wrong way on the drive. I grabbed her to keep her from taking a tumble, but I won’t go into details as to the part of her anatomy that I grabbed.
Stop, look, and listen, both ways. Some years ago an aquaintance had just gotten back from an extended stay in the UK. He looked the wrong way and was hit and killed by a car.
Looking the wrong way in the UK is unfortunately common. I could do the same thing. I don’t have any desire to drive in the UK, Japan, or other countries that drive on the wrong side of the road. A few years ago my Brother and Sister in law were hit head on by Australians driving on the left. Fortunately no one was seriously injured. I know these few countries are entrenched in their traditions but they should coincide with the rest of the world (about 95%) to drive on the right. I have driven a couple of right hand drive cars in the US. It was strange but doable. I am about 80% ambidextrous so shifting left handed was not a problem.
Driving on the left side is taxing. And it is most demanding when turning for myself and some others that I have seen. Without thinking many seem to move into the “correct” lane when making a turn.
I’m a driver and not much bothers me, but when I drove in London, once I got to the hotel, I never wanted to get in that car again. Never forget my wife screaming at me as we were meeting a truck on a two lane road when she thought I was on the wrong side. Oh those Brits.
I started learning to drive on a stick (1954 Chevy) in 1965 at the ripe old age of 13! I say “started” learning to drive as we lived in a semi rural area on a gravel street. I was only allowed to drive on our street at a maximum 25mph (second gear). I was surprised by this as my parents were very law abiding. I later figured it out. they started driving in the 1920s when there were no driver licenses. It came in handy when I got a job at 13 transitioning to 14 driving military Jeeps on a farm. That was perfectly legal as I did not drive on public roads. When I got my learners permit a 15 my father stressed that I always look were I am going, or intend to go. I have always done this. I have seen a couple of surveillance videos that cracked me up. The one I remember was a car thief who broke into a pickup then quickly exited. He then broke into a car and quickly exited. Both vehicles had manual transmissions! It was stated that a manual transmission is a very effective anti theft device. I have owned 43 cars, 3 small vintage pickups, and 3 motorcycles. I think I have owned less than 10 automatics. I have had 3 automatic vehicles with “shift kits” they feel almost like a manual without the clutch.
There are people called ‘pedestrians’. They are trying to get across the street while the light is green. Do NOT make a right turn in front of them when the light turns green. They have the right of way, not you. As a frequent pedestrian, this really bugs me. Sure, you may have to wait, but it’s the right and legal thing to do.