[TheForge] OT - The science of driving.

[Ries Niemi]

There are manuals about blacksmithing, but you dont learn blacksmithing 
from them. You learn from them after you have already physically 
learned the basics. Then some of the ideas in the books make more sense.
But I would propose that driving, like blacksmithing, is a physical 
pursuit, and the important thing is to teach the body how to do it. The 
mind can follow along later, at its own pace.
So I dont think just reading a book will make most people any better at 
driving. You need to train your body, your eyes, and your mind all 
together to learn a complicated process like driving or blacksmithing.
Repitition is really important. Knowing what to do is not good enough, 
you need to do it over and over again until your BODY knows it.
Driving skills improve with practice- older drivers have measurably 
better reaction times than teenagers, because they have reacted to cars 
pulling out in front of them so many times.
Real driving schools, like the ones that teach high performance 
driving, emphasize "seat time".
Much like "hammer time".
Our problem is because we have designed our physical world to REQURE 
driving from place to place, we just assume everyone will learn to 
drive, pretty much on their own. Most drivers ed classes are a joke, 
and feature very little behind the wheel time.
A lot of people should not be driving cars. But they do anyway.
Sorry, but  I think this is one of those problems whose answer costs 
more than we as a society are willing to pay. In europe, the test to 
get a drivers licence is actually hard- many people fail it several 
times, even after actually STUDYING! Then, in some countries, they make 
you have a big red "L" for learner on your car for a year or so, so 
others can get out of your way.
We would never subject our citizens to the indignity of actually having 
to learn how to do it right.

ries