Omg!

[commanderwhite]

My eldest turns 16 tomorrow & here in NSW he is entitled to obtain his "L Plates".

Since he was old enough to sit up right in his high chair he has been in & around cars & the first word I taught him was Brocky.

He has attended Bathurst since he was 8 years of age & has gone to events at the AGP, Bathurst 24Hr x 2, Oran Pk, Eastern Ck etc.

Anyway I just want to wish him all the best for his driving career & hope that like me he avoids trouble & acts responsibly when out on the road at all times.

[barnart]

My eldest turns 16 tomorrow & here in NSW he is entitled to obtain his "L Plates".

Since he was old enough to sit up right in his high chair he has been in & around cars & the first word I taught him was Brocky.

He has attended Bathurst since he was 8 years of age & has gone to events at the AGP, Bathurst 24Hr x 2, Oran Pk, Eastern Ck etc.

Anyway I just want to wish him all the best for his driving career & hope that like me he avoids trouble & acts responsibly when out on the road at all times.

My daughter is driving around at 16 in Melbourne. Gee its handy having a house in Darwin. She thinks it great being the only year 10 student with a license.

[Holdennumber1]

Hope he breezes through the test.:) Good luck to him!

Oh, and tell him that you've run him around for 16 years so now its his turn to sit in the drivers seat while you sit back and relax with a beer (onces he's on his P's of course).

I got my P's late last year and I've had to run around my dad heaps. But I enjoy it, especially driving his car.:1:

[moxo]

1 Join car club
2 start him in motorkhanas.

He'll find out the easy way about loss of traction, sudden changes of direction and stuff. And he'll have a ball (you will too).

Where do you live?



Moxo

[Sandman77]

Happy Birthday to him!:party2:
Hope he enjoys driving:)

[fastboysmith]

i always thought the best way to learn the limits of a car is take it to the track and go hard, it's how i learn't and haven't had an accident, avoided a couple but if i didn't do this i would have crashed

[group C]

I agree that the best way to learn now days was an advanced driver training course/courses.
In my day we could go out in a paddock and learn without hurting ourselves our anyone else:D
But now days you cant do that due to all the anti hoon laws and red tape etc,My boy is 14 and has driving a round the paddock and thinks he can drive:confused: but i have decided when the time comes an advanced driver training course will be the way to go,Alot of the kids today/as well as ourselves though we were bulletproof at there age(that's the scary thing)difference is the power of the standard car and the amount of traffic on the roads...
Good luck with it all mate i hope he does ok and doesn't learn the hard way

[BB]

The trouble is, it may not be there fault. It takes time to read the road and other users. People do stupid things, you have to try and anticipate, and that will only come with experience. The other concern for kids reaching this age is their friends are doing the same thing. A car full of hormone ravaged teens is no place for the faint hearted. They think they are bullet proof. Go with them and watch out for bad habits. Adelaide drivers are the worlds worst for not watching their mirrors. I told my kids to constantly watch behind them as much as ahead and know where you are on the road and who is around you at all times. Advanced driver training is not cheap but could be useful too.

[David Paterson]

Course providers believe it's better to do an advanced/defensive driving course when you have a year or two of driving experience.

I agree woth Moxo, get him into a CAMS car club and do Motorkhanas. You learn a lot about car control, situational awareness and vehicle placement, but it's very safe, cheap and fun.

[commanderwhite]

Thanks to everyone who has offered advice - I appreciate it.

I have already spoken to Ian Luff's Driving School about him attending when he gets his "P"s.

We live in Liverpool NSW about 15 mins from Eastern Creek & he has seen what cars can do when out of control at motorsports events.

[HQGTS74]

Hey mate, all the best to him, i hope he enjoys it as much as i do. I've had my L's for exactly a year now, one more to go before i can get my license here in VIC, and my dad was also considering sending me and my sister to some sort of driving course. Definately would be benefitial, in terms of understanding how a car will respond in certain circumstances. Best thing you can do while on L's is to experience all types of conditions and roads.

All the best,

Cheers,

Chris

[Nick Short]

If you can teach him (or pay someone to teach him) that driving on the road is a complex SKILL to be practiced - and by skill I don't mean learning to corner as fast as he can or getting past everyone in traffic. I drive a forklift and I spend all my time THINKING about my route, obstacles, the lie of the ground, other moving vehicles, the possibility of a person round any blind corner, and OBSERVING everything at all times. People die or get injured when drivers don't. It is constant vigilance as much as knowing how to work the hydraulics. Road driving should be as rigorous as that, constant observation, anticipation, thought. Everything else should be secondary.

But many people think of their cars as metal exoskeletons around their egos, like the Iron Man movie - press the pedal and off you go over there, at speed, past lesser mortals. Or they sink into their comfy seat, climate how they like it, power steering and auto box doing most of the driving for them, and their brains switch onto standby mode. Not seeing, not thinking.

I did an advanced driving course in the '80s with a police instructor, Paul Catlin, and you have to do a commentary the whole time you are driving him. What you see, what you think might be ahead, how another driver might behave, what hazards, where on the road you are and why, what gear and why, ALWAYS thinking, always looking, always anticipating.

It also included skid training etc, but for road driving the first part is 99% of the importance in every day situations. Knowing how to corner fast shouldn't be part of normal road driving, boring though that might sound. Your JetStar pilot doesn't do high speed, low altitude passes, buzz the control tower, do aerobatics or whatever. He "drives" at the posted airspeed, following the prescribed route, and does it all by the book. And he THINKS about what he is doing. He has the lives of 200 people to think about, and when your son goes out on the road he has everyone else on the road to think about.

Let him have his fun off road, but for his safety and that of others he needs to understand that road driving is different and he has a big responsibility to be safe. Yes, I am passionate about road safety, much as I love motorsport.

[commanderwhite]

Nick - You & I are on the same track when it comes to driving.

[Nick Short]

So that's 2 of us in Australia, then!

[moxo]

Darn good points Nick, and I'm not going to disagree.

My point about having a flog around in motorkhanas (from the age of 12) is that kids can get the basics (starting, stopping, turning) down, even get good at them, without other cars around.

You learn to manouvre the car before you have to share the road. And let's face it - L-Platers can make you nervous, right? You also get that little bit of skid practice and some experience in planning your moves.

Driving a car is hard. It really is. Think about this - starting off from a set of lights and turning right. Right hand is steering, left might be changing gear. Right foot is going down and left foot is coming up (but at different rates). So, you have to look where you're going (around the corner as far as you can see, as well as at any oncoming traffic, looking for pedestrians, or anyone who might be running a red light or doing something dumb.

You listen for cues too - a horn, a screech of brakes (a downside of ABS - you don't always get a warning these days). Your radio is going, you might be singing along, thinking about what a shock-jock just said or nodding in agreement with the ABC's Arts programme.

And the kids are yelling at each other (and you) from the back seat and the missus is saying 'you should turn three streets before and take that short cut....'

We all do it without thinking, but we shouldn't. Nick, thanks for the reminder.

Anyway, I'm off to catch the bus. Speaking of not thinking about your driving...



Moxo

[AmonFan]

Some great points Nick. Its pretty rare that i drive on the public roads, the last drive over 5 minutes i had was when i took David5 to the Island ;) Much safer on the race track where oddly most drivers can tell you are slowing down without relying on brake lights :p

[david5]

Some great points Nick. Its pretty rare that i drive on the public roads, the last drive over 5 minutes i had was when i took David5 to the Island ;) Much safer on the race track where oddly most drivers can tell you are slowing down without relying on brake lights :p

And he was a good boy too.

[Nick Short]

Unfortunately we are animals who instinctively crave fun, and a car is a quick way to get it when you're young and have no idea of risk. Or older and haven't developed the right mindset about road driving.....

This week the SA government started holding a series of forums asking the public how they think the road toll could be cut, and I just held my head in my hands. Why doesn't anyone in government have any idea, after all these years? And why ask the very people who are part of the problem? The whole system is deeply flawed and riddled with ignorance.

The pollies don't have a clue - our Roads Minister had to step down when the press found out he was a serial speeder and red light jumper. Clearly it wasn't thought a problem when he was appointed. And our roads STILL don't have the reflective plastic paint "revealed" 3 or 4 years ago on TV, that has been used for 40 years in Europe. So we have the faint whitewash lines that disappear in rain.

A judge recently said that a van driver who swerved to cut into a faster lane, and killed a scooter rider he hadn't seen, wasn't doing anything that could be considered abnormal driving in Adelaide. So no penalty for that minor indiscretion that could have happened to anyone....

I regularly see police driving sloppily or with one arm out of the window, and our Police Crash Investigators seem to lack analysis. A few weeks ago a woman crossed the centre line on a streaming wet, downhill, off-camber left-hand bend and had a fatal head-on. She was doing 60 in a 60 zone, so according to the police "Speed was not a factor". In Germany, where they seem to know what they're doing, they have a concept called "Unadapted Speed", where if you are not driving to the conditions you are at fault, even if you are not "speeding".

Driving instructors seem to have a very wide range of ability, from good down to bloody appalling. My mate's instructor didn't know how to drive around roundabouts (I still shake my head in despair) and so skipped that bit, and it wasn't until some years later that his Scottish girlfriend had to show him. Another mate's son was told by his instructor to drive along the gutter at all times so people could pass. He now has a tendency to clip the wing mirrors of parked cars everywhere. I see instructors on their way to lessons using their mobiles, failing to keep within their lanes, tailgating and all the rest of it.

So if the government, police, judiciary and instructors haven't the faintest idea, how are the public supposed to know any different? Or know that how they drive is just terrible?

Here in SA it isn't the hoons or the P platers so much as mature experienced drivers, who make the same rookie mistakes over and over again. I cannot explain why this is. How can you be driving for 20 years and still not know what you're doing? I recently saw 2 rear-end crashes in one week, both at a green light, when the first car accelerated away and the following car ACCELERATED FASTER AND RAN INTO THEM! The first car hadn't braked, you understand, just not gone quite as fast as the second car. I mentioned this at work and one mate laughed and said "Yeah, I've nearly done that loads of times". I asked him why he hadn't learned from the first incident and he looked puzzled and said he didn't know. I REALLY want to understand this, so any advice would be welcome.

If a vehicle ahead is slowing (and you should be able to tell even without brake lights because the thing GETS BIGGER IN YOUR VISION) I gently lift off, matching my speed (and maintaining a braking distance) without braking. And the usual effect is that the car behind me almost runs up my backside. Without brake lights they are hopelessly caught by surprise. But even WITH brake lights......

......last night I was driving in the right-hand of 2 lanes and there was a car to my left. The road was otherwise almost empty. Ahead, a bus was pulling up at the kerb. I looked across at the other driver, who was staring ahead but apparently not noticing the 40 foot yellow bus with glowing brake lights and flashing orange indicator. I dropped back slightly, as this is something I see almost daily and know what will happen. Sure enough, they continued at 60, staring ahead but not seeing the bus, until about 20m from it, when I saw their hands suddenly stiffen on the wheel and they swerved into my lane. Buses, roadworks, parked trucks, the result is the same most days. Like so many drivers their "bubble of awareness" is about 20m, and forward only. Why is this, and how can we change it?

None of this is hard, but if the system is so deeply flawed then it's almost impossible to change it. Instead of asking the people for advice the SA government should be asking experts in Germany, Sweden or even Britain, where there are more cars, more minor roads, more bends, higher speed limits sometimes, ICE AND SNOW, even wandering moose. And yet their road toll is far lower per capita. Simply put, their training is better, and those in power are far better informed.

So, if you have kids learning to drive, try to instil as much common sense as you can, and don't rely on the system to do it for you (especially if you live in SA). We've lost a number of young drivers again this year, and I believe ALL of the crashes were easily avoidable.

[vywgn]

i agree with you nick even though ive only been driving for 7 yrs now, some of the stuff i see and hear here in sa is just plain stupid, just like that van driver incident you were talking bout with the guy being blind in 1 eye, even where i work we get ambulances going past all the time and going through the intersection out front and the amount of drivers that just keep going or stop at the last minute is just crazy, i think ive seen bout 15 ambulances nearly getting cleaned up even with lights and sirens ablaze

[Nick Short]

I do go on, I know.....

The issue with the van driver wasn't just that he was almost blind, but that he saw slower cars ahead and chose to do the "Adelaide Swerve", the universal zero-thought, zero-observation, impulsive move. Anywhere else that would be Driving Without Due Care, but in an Adelaide court it is perfectly "acceptable by local standards", even if resulting in death.

If drivers of all ages fail to notice ambulances with sirens and lights going, or parked yellow buses, or roadworks (with 200m of warning signs, then flashing lights, then cones), then something is very wrong.

And then you can add hoons, school mums in 4WDs, drink-drivers...........

Oh, and taxi drivers - in January I was cleaned up by a young taxi driver as he came straight through an intersection despite the small matter of his light being red. Wrote my car off (and I broke the steering column with my arms), and am having physio twice a week even 8 months later. And it appears he was one of those bogus students, who has now done a runner back to his home country........So I suspect poor driver training and inattention may have been factors there too.

[monarocveightz]

Agree with all of your comments Nick....Adelaide's no different to QLD really, especially in regards to roundabouts etc

Just the other day I had a 40 something man talking on his mobile phone, looking dead ahead (rather than watching his right), pull out in front of me at a round about.....I blasted the horn, which scared the crap out of him, making him drop the phone down the side of his seat (I was close enough to see it fall...)

Also when I was driving on the motorway last night....there are stretches where there are roadworks....meaning 80 KM/H limits.....I had many people fly past doing 110.....then I suddenly saw them all brake heavily because there was a Police car attending a broken down vehicle on the side of the road......they all soon sped up once they got out of sight:rolleyes:

To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't had an accident yet, with the amount of times I've come across idiots who just don't read the road..

[Holdennumber1]

Oh, and taxi drivers - in January I was cleaned up by a young taxi driver as he came straight through an intersection despite the small matter of his light being red. Wrote my car off (and I broke the steering column with my arms), and am having physio twice a week even 8 months later. And it appears he was one of those bogus students, who has now done a runner back to his home country........So I suspect poor driver training and inattention may have been factors there too. Taxi drivers can be some of the worst from some of my experiences in my shortish time on SA roads.
They're always swerving over the road. I sometime wonder if its sleep deprevation or something like that after a nights worth of driving.
Luckily, the only time I have come close to a crash so far was when a 80+ year old pulled out straight in front of me from a give way sign. Twas certainly a bit scary.

[group C]

Round a bouts seem to cause so much confusion,as the laws have changed so much over the years.
I learnt to drive(still am) in the ACT which is IMO the round a bout capital of Australia.
Indicating to go around a round a bout is confusing,I use the same mentality and approach to a round a bout as i would in a cross road situation,if going straight ahead i do not indicate if going right or left i do indicate I also indicate when leaving a round a bout and this saves confusion and gives other people knowledge of what i am intending to do.
I find people indicating coming onto a round a bout and forgetting to indicate leaving the round a bout frustrating and dangerous.
sorry to ramble and probably confuse you with my simple explanation but it works for me and i have never been abused when doing so.

[monarocveightz]

Round a bouts seem to cause so much confusion,as the laws have changed so much over the years.
I learnt to drive(still am) in the ACT which is IMO the round a bout capital of Australia.
Indicating to go around a round a bout is confusing,I use the same mentality and approach to a round a bout as i would in a cross road situation,if going straight ahead i do not indicate if going right or left i do indicate I also indicate when leaving a round a bout and this saves confusion and gives other people knowledge of what i am intending to do.
I find people indicating coming onto a round a bout and forgetting to indicate leaving the round a bout frustrating and dangerous.
sorry to ramble and probably confuse you with my simple explanation but it works for me and i have never been abused when doing so.

I think it's law in NSW to indicate when leaving the roundabout?

I was taught when on my L's to always indicate when leaving one.....but I don't believe it is law here in QLD though...

[group C]

I think it's law in NSW to indicate when leaving the roundabout?

I was taught when on my L's to always indicate when leaving one.....but I don't believe it is law here in QLD though...
yeah leaving is right Codie just when people leave there indicator on when entering it hard to determine where they are proposing to go,need to be a mind reader.:confused:

[Nick Short]

My suggestion would be to ignore what some clueless public servants believe might be the right way, whichever state you're in. Indicate as you approach the roundabout, so everyone else has some idea of your intentions. LEFT, or RIGHT, or no indicator for straight ahead.

But once you're on the roundabout you need to indicate LEFT just before your exit. This tells anyone waiting to enter, or following you, that you are leaving.

So, in full, if you are turning LEFT you indicate LEFT on approach, then indicate LEFT just before your exit.

If going straight ahead, you don't indicate on approach, but indicate LEFT just before your exit.

If turning RIGHT you indicate RIGHT on approach, travel round the roundabout, then indicate LEFT just before your exit.

Whatever your state rules, this way leaves no room for any doubt for anyone else! Of course there are roundabouts in those foreign parts that don't run on the grid street system, where there are many more than 4 roads. The Magic Roundabout in Swindon is a good example. But you still indicate LEFT just before your exit, so it isn't any harder, even if there are 20 exits.

I remember on my first visit to Australia the official rule in Qld was still to give way to minor roads, so farmers would pull out of a dirt track onto a main road right in front of you.........And in SA if you wanted to let someone pass you, you indicated right. So if you actually wanted to turn right they smashed into your side as you turned. All great rules, thought up by officials without a clue.