I dont know. I only drive once every three months or so. and every once in a while Ill go on a huge roadtrip across the country. I have never noticed any loss in driving skill.
Assuming you are talking about a loss in your own skills, isn’t this exactly what the OP is describing? If people perceived a change in their own abilities, the problem would likely not exist.
Its a car. You turn the wheel and press the two buttons.
I've beaten spelunky 1, and 2. Im also sporty and coordinated. I know what good motor skills look and feel like, and what being bad at something feels like.
If there is a suspicion of skill loss in the population, i dont know why so many people in this thread would blindly accept that. We should all put our good boy skeptic scientist hats on.
Are the changes in chrash severity and frequency even for all types of people? Doubtful. In what age ranges and occupations are the biggest changes in.
"People crash more now because sudden population wide skill loss" doesnt even pass the basic sanity test. Im gonna need some evidence.
I don't think it's degradation any more than my skills at golf or basketball degrade in the 6 months between times I play either of them. I'm the baseline level of good enough that I'm competent, but I definitely don't have the skills of someone who practices either daily.
> definitely don't have the skills of someone who practices either daily
And that is exactly the premise of one proposed mechanism by which serious accident rates (and insured losses) may have increased during a period when a great many people who previously practiced something daily then did not do so: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39247101
We get the concept, theres just no given evidence and it doesnt pass the smell test. I havent ridden a bike in years i bet im exactly as "skilled" as the last time i was on it. Driving is just not a skill you get worse at if you dont do it for two years. Ive done it, and felt no difference.
What do you mean you doubt that. Thats obnoxious. this is simply a fact. Ive got a bike downstairs I could go ride it, one handed, no handed, pop a wheelie just like 15 years ago. My dad is in his fifties and i bet the same applies for him but hed complain about his wrists.
If the skill level takes ten seconds to reachieve I dont really consider that skill loss. Same for driving. Americans spend an insane amount of time driving, tens of thousands of hours from a young age. This is just not a skill that obviously weakens in any meaningful way if you dont do it for a year.
I need hard evidence, not just your unreasonable contrarianism.
I mean, maybe you're just better at it, but I was a competitive mountain biker 10+ years ago and the last time I tried to ride a bike a couple years ago, if I'd taken my hands off the handlebars I probably would have crashed in seconds.
We're all just asserting anecdotes here about how easy/hard things are. I tend to agree that the act of driving a car isn't so hard that people forgot how to physically drive over the pandemic. What I think is the much more likely thing that changed is the habits of awareness of other drivers. The instincts of which corners have low visibility or your general sense of how fast people drive on various roads. Driving is ultimately a social activity in some way. Most people who get in accidents aren't just failing to "hit the right button" on their car, they're trying to drive well and avoid something unexpected.
It seems entirely reasonable to me that some number of people kept driving daily during the pandemic on mostly empty roads with mostly absent rules enforcement and picked up some bad habits. Maybe that's speeding, or running red lights, or being on their phone while driving because there's less risk of running into another car. Then as people who didn't do that started driving again, their memories from 6-18 months before didn't match the current driving culture any more. Different people adapted in different ways, but the bounds of what's "normal" has changed somewhat.
I don't think I'm worse at physically driving now, but I have definitely been surprised by drivers running red lights or being overly deferential to cross traffic a fair bit in the last couple years. I've adapted, but I'm definitely driving with a different mindset now than I used to.
could be phone use, could be drugs, we dont know but i guess im wrong while skeptically agnostic about the given assumed cause of the issue despite lack of evidence. How about aliens. How about ghosts. I think ghosts have been crashing peoples cars.
What that sounds implausable to you? Seems unlikely huh? You require hard evidence?
How dare you disagree with me im a pro ghost watcher for ten years.
Not convinced? Sounds ridiculous. Exactly.
Youre not gonna convince me people lose driving skill over a year. You can speculate to infinity.
We need real evidence. If you dont have it, weve got nothing.
Right, and you dont have to be a pro stunt driver to make it to work every day without dying. I honestly dont know what hes getting at.
Actually I think most people are significantly safer driving in a way that completely removes opportunity for skill expression. Waiting for other drivers, going normal speeds, not doing something else while driving, etc. Driving should be pretty unskillfull and boring if safe.
> This, and perhaps parent's driving skill has just been poor for a very long time now. No drop, just sitting at the bottom.
I'm not trying to be mean, but the adage in poker of spotting the fool at the table here applies. And as a person who rides bicycles, motorcycles as well as drives cars, and has driven in the EU with much stricter driving requirements I'd say there has been a massive drop in aptitude over all.
So much so that I just want to live a life that allows me to be car-free now. EVs are nice, but having everything I want within walking distance is much more preferable.
Isn't that just reflecting that you have the exact amount of skill of someone who drives every 3 months? What OP is talking about is people who likely drove for an hour or more every day suddenly barely driving more than a couple times a week for a year or more, and are now back to driving daily. That's completely different from just not driving much all the time.
I'd like to see slow trucks drive in the right lane rather than the left lane, and I'd like them to stay within the lane lines whenever possible rather than randomly drifting across them.
Stupid question, but to this day I can't get the idea of overtaking. Any given stretch of the road has a speed limit. That limit is well below the maximum capability of almost any car on the road. From the POV of traffic regulations, you'd expect drivers on either lane to drive at that limit. What is, then, the point of overtaking? The cars are swapping places back and forth, but otherwise are (supposed to be) moving at the same speed. Is it a way for some to work around speed limits (by always overtaking forward, never being overtaken), or just a pointless dance to keep drivers from being bored and falling asleep behind the wheel?
Drivers are supposed to keep right (outside/slower lanes) except to pass. That's the law in WA state and probably in most parts of the country. As far as I know it's also the law in other countries too; offhand on the Autobon.
In theory, the lanes further left should be at about the speed limit and the lanes to the right could be for slower long haul or dangerous loads driving, such as large and heavy trucks which might have a lower speed limit on some sections of road. In practice, please keep right except to pass and don't cause a traffic hazard trying to enforce slowness upon speeders with a rolling roadblock.
I would conceed that keeping drivers awake is understated, though, the speed limits are too slow for modern cars. I comfortably do 15 mph over (freeway driving when road conditions support, I dont speed on surface streets), and id do 20-25 if it didnt move the penalty to jailtime.
I do this to save time, it cuts ~25% from my commute. My only recommendations are that slow traffic keep right (which is still me, traffic moves fast here), and be mindful of the flow of traffic. The most dangerous aspect of speeding is the speed limit, some people are inclined to follow the speed limit whatever it is, and become a serious hazzard when people are trying to cut through traffic at twice (or faster) that speed.
Speed limits are 55, sorry, sometimes I have a case of shiftwork brain. Northern virginia, if you watch those "idiots in cars videos" then youve seen these roads.
Overtaking doesn't happen as much on long haul stretches of highway, in accordance with what you'd assume. Mostly it's either passing a truck that's going under the limit, or because a truck is slower going up an incline. Once you're in a more occupied area though, a lot of overtaking is people going at the speed limit passing local traffic that's merging on/off the highway at lower speeds.
