Could Power-To-Weight Ratio Be The Next Addition To Graduated Driver License Restrictions? Probably Not.

I often remind parents of the huge difference in vehicle and roadway sophistication that has taken place since they first learned to drive. Most any vehicle built before the 1990's had sufficient noise/vibration/harshness issues (remember wind noise at higher speeds?) that told the driver that they might want to be a little more careful as speed increased. Couple that with roads that were slightly less than smooth, and the driver received plenty of sensory feedback.

I've also commented on the continuing increase in power with new vehicles. This article from Autoweek talked about this topic in relation to insurance rates.

The net result is that new drivers today have a much greater ability to get into problem situations faster with less warning signs along the way. They can easily exceed the personal and vehicle limitations governing vehicle control. For this reason, a restriction on vehicle capabilities for inexperienced drivers makes sense.

I was reminded of this when I read this article about Australian Graduated Driver Licensing that is tied to Power-to-Weight vehicle ratios. Some countries in Europe have had this type of restriction for a while, limiting new drivers to slower vehicles until they gain experience.

Given the substantial differences in approach to teen driver training here in the United States, it would be very difficult to add such a restriction here, especially since the requirements are independently mandated by each state.

Ford Motor Company, with their MyKey program, is somewhat addressing the issue by allowing parents to physically impose speed restrictions and providing audio warnings as speed increases. It does not address the temptation of too much power available up to the programmed maximum that can get inexperienced drivers into trouble.

GPS monitoring devices are available that will report on events and speed, but that is after the fact.

The best answer is judicious parental choices in vehicle availability to the newly minted driver that reduce the temptation to "see what it can do".

Seven Steps/Phases In the Process of Becoming an "Experienced Driver"

The insurance industry, based on the surcharge placed on new teen drivers for the first few years, believes that maturity is the key to safer driving behavior. If you wait until you are 25 to learn to drive, even though you have no experience, you will not be penalized with an increased premium. Implicitly, the insurance companies are totally discounting the value of proper training for a new driver.

In thinking about the process of gaining experience behind the wheel, I have identified the following 7 steps:

1. Learning Basic Vehicle Controls

2. Learning the Rules of the Road

3. Mastering Vehicle Controls

4. Executing Normal Vehicle Maneuvers

5. Developing Situational Awareness

6. Negotiating Hazardous Conditions

7. Learning Personal and Vehicle Limitations

The steps are not necessarily serially executed. The learning process takes place over time, and application of technology available today can significantly reduce the time needed to become an "Experienced Driver", especially in the latter steps.

The real goal should be to instill safe driving habits and behaviors as early as possible in the process, and to accelerate the process wherever practical to reduce the window where the new driver is a greater risk to all of us.

Lessons To Be Learned From a NM Tragedy

On June 27, 2009, four teens lost their lives in a collision in New Mexico, caused by a drunk driver on the wrong side of the road. Rightfully so, the response has been a call for more efforts to prevent DUI occurrences.

This article gives some details about the crash:

http://tinyurl.com/lzt2wr


What caught my eye in the comments section following the article was the questioning of the role of the parents in potentially avoiding the situation in the first place. The teens were in the first car of a caravan of four vehicles carrying teens to a house party. The time of the collision was around midnight. The driver of the vehicle is listed as sixteen.

Even without the GDL restrictions, a relatively inexperienced driver should not have been on the road with 4 passengers at midnight, with the probability of a return home presumably sometime after 1 or 2 am.

The second thing that caught my eye was the damage to the vehicle:





Clearly, the driver, in a panic situation, swerved to the left to avoid the head-on collision. That is not surprising, but is exactly the wrong thing to do. She obviously also reacted too late, since the oncoming vehicle caught her in the right front quarter.

Had the driver been through our Level 2 simulation training, she would have known that she needed to go to the right, and would have been drilled on the need to get out of the way, rather than stay in lane until it was too late.

Most experts believe that the answer to teen fatalities is further restrictions on teen drivers until they gain sufficient experience and maturity. We train company fleet drivers in defensive driving techniques using this simulator, and about 75% of these experienced (>10 years) drivers either fail to avoid the head-on collision, or subsequently lose control during the avoidance maneuver. Time spent behind the wheel of a vehicle is not the solution.

The value of our simulation training lies in exposure to critical situations, evaluation of initial reaction, and practice of correct response. You simply cannot get that from an online course, in a classroom, or during supervised on-road driving with an instructor.