The Wise Drive

This week, instead of answering one of your questions, I have a question for you. But first, I need you on my side. You’re likely familiar with the following quote, sometimes apocryphally credited to Abraham Lincoln: “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.” There’s a 150-plus history of Americans agreeing with that sentiment, so if that doesn’t ring true for you, you’re the outlier.

Of course, it’s a metaphor, and it’s been applied to many situations besides fists and noses, including arguments against slavery, bars in neighborhoods, and smoking in public. It’s also an argument in favor of a person’s right to do whatever they’d like as long as it doesn’t harm someone else.

Today I’m applying that principle to driving: Your liberty to drive how you’d like ends where it puts other road users at risk. If you think about it, that’s the fundamental principle underlying much of our traffic law. Driving impaired, reckless, distracted, or exceeding the speed limit; these are all prohibited because they create an unnecessary risk to others.

Now imagine that there is a $1.99 device that car manufacturers can install in new cars that can identify if a driver is impaired and prevent them from driving, without the driver having to do anything outside of their normal routine. It could save 13,000 lives a year in the US alone, reduce serious injuries even more, and reduce the burden on emergency responders. That would be amazing, right? I’m guessing most of you would support that.

How about if there was a device that was free and could save 12,000 lives a year by preventing drivers from speeding? Would you be in favor of that? Not as many of you this time. I bring this up because this technology already exists and could be coming soon to a car near you. A new car knows the speed limit. With a bit of programming it could be made to never exceed it.

Starting this year, new cars in Europe will give drivers an audible alert if they exceed the speed limit. A bill in California is proposing something similar. But that wasn’t how the California bill started; it originally intended to prevent vehicles from driving more than ten mph over the speed limit. Is that government overreach or wise transportation planning?

We tend to agree that a person’s right to be impaired ends when they get in a driver’s seat. Why do many of us believe we should have the option to speed, even though it’s prohibited by law and there’s low to no-cost technology that could prevent it?

Maybe it’ll help if I make this less personal. Should we allow school bus drivers to speed? A recent observation study found that half of school bus drivers speed in school zones. Nearly a quarter of those speeding drivers exceeded the speed limit by at least 10 mph. That’s a problem, right? We likely could convince the powers that be to install speed limiters in school buses.

But that would be a bit hypocritical; in that same study about three-quarters of car drivers were speeding. And the school bus fatal crash rate is .2 fatalities per 100 million miles compared to 1.5 fatalities per 100 million miles for passenger vehicles. We kill ourselves and others over seven times more frequently than school bus drivers do.

We’ve tried for decades to warn people not to speed and write a few tickets to those who do, and still every year we have five-digit fatality counts due to speeding. Maybe it’s time to take away the option.

Q2: Several years ago, the son of a coworker was ticketed for having wheels that stuck out past the fenders.  They were installed by the local tire shop. Just yesterday I saw a jacked-up truck with wheels that were at least six inches exposed outside the fenders. Why can tire stores install illegal equipment? My experience is that they can’t, by law, remove and reinstall a worn-out tire when asked to rotate them.

A: Let’s start from the end of the question. You’re right that tire shops won’t install worn-out tires, but I couldn’t find a Washington law that prohibits it. Admittedly, there are a lot of laws to search through, and it’s possible that I missed it, so I stopped by a reputable tire installer and talked with a service person who’s been in the tire business for several decades. Surely, he’d know what law prevented them from installing unsafe tires. He didn’t know of any law either; they don’t do it because it’s their company policy. While it is a violation of the law to drive on public roads with unsafe tires, there is no law about installing them. (At least in Washington; some states prohibit shops from installing unsafe tires.)

Continue reading “It’s Legal to Install Illegal Tires”

Q: In a school zone, if the lights are flashing but school is out (like for spring break), does the 20-mph speed limit still apply?

A: Sounds like someone forgot to turn out the lights before they went on vacation. Dad’s going to be pretty upset when you all get home. I hope you’re ready for the lecture on responsibility, how money doesn’t grow on trees, and that if this is how you’re going to waste his resources maybe now is a good time to start paying rent.

Oh, wait, wrong scenario. Let’s talk about school zones. The easy answer is, yes, if the beacons are flashing the speed limit is 20 mph. Now, when someone says an answer is easy and responds with such confidence, you should ask for sources. And since you’re asking, I’ll admit this is a bit of an argument from silence.

Continue reading “School Zones: When The Flashing Lights Don’t Go on Vacation”

Q: Lately I’ve driven through some intersections that have artwork painted on the pavement, including some multi-colored crosswalks. I think it looks great, but I wonder if it distracts drivers and makes intersections less safe. And is it legal to paint crosswalks whatever color you want? I thought there were rules that specified the colors for crosswalks and other street markings.

A: I have often said (possibly to the point of irritation) that predictability is a core component in safe driving. When we follow traffic laws, other drivers can better anticipate our actions, and it creates harmony and safety on the road. But what about our transportation infrastructure? Should the markings on the roadways also be predictable? Yes, they should.

Continue reading “Street Art Saves Lives”

Q: You’ve written before about A-pillars being a visibility problem, but try being tall with the safety cam in newer cars completely obscuring your vision for its own purposes of viewing and distracting you as a driver! Aren’t there some standards that car companies have to meet about visibility?

A: Are we living in a world where we’ve prioritized what a car can see over what the driver of the car can see? Until we reach a point where cars no longer have steering wheels or gas and brake pedals, we still need to see where we’re going.

Continue reading “Visibility and Distraction in New Cars”

Q: In front of my building I saw a shiny Cadillac Escalade, that on closer inspection had fender-bender dings, attempting to parallel park in a too-small space. Oh, I forgot to mention that the rear bumper has a “student driver” sticker on it. That leads me to the question, what vehicles are appropriate for student drivers?

A: I just thought of a brilliant idea. Let’s link a driver’s age with the weight of the vehicle they’re allowed to drive. You’d take your age, add two zeros, and that’s how many pounds your car can weigh. New teen drivers would be limited to 60s era Mini Coopers and golf carts. In your 20s you could get a compact car. You couldn’t drive a full-size pickup until your late 40s.

Continue reading “The Right Car for a New Driver”

Q: I have a car with ten air bags. If I get in a crash I’m going to be floating in a balloon-filled cabin. With that many airbags, is the seat belt still necessary? I realize it’s the law, but from a safety perspective how much does it help anymore?

A: Not only are airbags an effective safety feature; they also function as a prompt for jokes. Like these: New cars come with up to a dozen airbags, and that doesn’t count your passengers. New cars have so many airbags that they’re beginning to rival a political convention. Airbags – inspired by a road trip with your in-laws. I didn’t promise they’d be good jokes.

Continue reading “Airbags – Pillow or Projectile?”

Q: Does a company that requires a right turn only out of its driveway or parking lot onto a public road need a permit to put up said sign? I feel like I’m being discriminated against because I live in the opposite direction of the majority of the employees.

A: Right about now all the people who have actually experienced discrimination because of their race, gender, age, or sexual orientation are playing the world’s smallest violins for you. Right-turn-only signs on private property are not a form of discrimination. The real purpose is less insidious and more practical.

Continue reading “Left Turns Aren’t So Great”

Q: Can anything be done about these long pickup trucks that park nose-in along the downtown corridor? I’m most concerned about the ones with the steel trailer hitches that stick out into traffic like can openers waiting to slice open any passing car that gets too close.

A: Here’s something I find hard to wrap my head around: You could take your driver test in a Honda Fit and, with license in hand but no additional experience or training, be legally allowed to drive a 45-foot-long Prevost motorhome conversion. Think about that for a second and tell me we don’t have a gap in our driver license requirements. Fortunately, most of us are either wise enough not to do that or don’t have access to a 45-foot motorhome on the day we get our license.  

Continue reading “Angle Parking – You Might Not Fit”

Q: My question is inspired by a near-miss I had with a Tesla driver on the freeway that barged in front of me moving toward the exit, driver on a cell phone with no hands on the wheel. Why doesn’t the law prohibit driver assistance technology from the misnamed “autopilot” all the way down to cruise control in congested conditions?

A: The problem with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) is right there in the name: the driver. And in the case of Tesla, the branding. How do you get away with naming your product “autopilot” or “full self-driving” when your product is, by its own description, not full self-driving or an autopilot? Tesla’s driver assistance system is better than many, but despite repeated promises from Elon Musk, the cars still don’t drive themselves.

Continue reading “The Problem With ADAS”