Unique road hazards

[Joezeppy]

Buddy of mine will avoid a delivery charge at all costs. 20+ years ago he built a deck and picked up a full load of 16' deck boards. 1-ton truck with an 8' box so it handled the load well and he even pulled a small utility trailer behind so no one would get too close. He had it tied down pretty well but he took the 2nd to last turn off the main highway a bit too quickly and the plastic bed liner let the entire load slide out - right over the trailer and all over the highway! Oops.

 

[ziplock]

High school doesn't have driver's ed anymore? I

Not in Maryland.
Back in the day, they offered it in high school.

When you take driver's ed in high school, you get much more training as it was a 6 month course and free, because it is part of school.

And it is something many people do every day.

Of course I'm sure someone will say learning to drive should not be funded by taxpayers. We should use that money to pay for children to draw ugly pictures in Art class.

Now you PAY to send your child to driving school. It's all about money, not grade, or learning.

Do other states still have driver's ed in high school?

I would love to know.

And I would like to know what extra curricular class you think is more important than learning to drive in high school.

 

[Wasillaguy]

When I was a kid, the old man that owned one of our favorite fishing holes got on the highway with an aluminum canoe. It flew out and killed a woman and he went to prison. Probably didn't fix the stupid, but got it away from hurting anyone else.

 

[SeilerBird]

For many aspects, perhaps, but they can't really teach dealing with traffic or the physical feel of a vehicle, as well as a few other odds and ends. So they may know how to steer a car and to apply accelerator and brake, but they still have a lot to learn.

Similar to flight simulators, which can teach many procedures well (if they don't develop bad habits with no teacher to correct them), but getting in the real thing still adds a LOT of things that must be learned.

So real world instruction is needed in both cases.

Thank you Captain Obvious. Of course they are not prepared to take the drivers test. This is the excuse that school districts are using to cut the drivers ed programs, which are expensive to maintain a fleet of cars and teachers. Driving stats have continued to drop over the last 50 years.

"Although the U.S. population has continued to grow since 1975, the rate of crash deaths per 100,000 people in 2021 was 39% lower than it was four decades ago."

 

[tlmgcamp]

School districts don't want the liability for an accident for when a student crashes the car while participating in an activity that is run by the school. It doesn't matter how many waivers of liability get signed, ambulance chasers will be ambulance chasers

 

[Wasillaguy]

I had driver's Ed. Teacher was the football coach and 4 students. One of the 4 was "Charlie" from Special Ed.
Charlie caught on right away to turn the steering wheel to go around a corner, but never got the concept of straightening it back out once around the corner. He also was completely mesmerized by the flashing dash lights when turn signals were used, forgetting all about the driving.

 

[Rene T]

I had driver's Ed. Teacher was the football coach and 4 students. One of the 4 was "Charlie" from Special Ed.
Charlie caught on right away to turn the steering wheel to go around a corner, but never got the concept of straightening it back out once around the corner. He also was completely mesmerized by the flashing dash lights when turn signals were used, forgetting all about the driving.

Sounds like Charlie wasn’t the brightest lightbulb in the package.

 

[Larry N.]

School districts don't want the liability for an accident for when a student crashes the car while participating in an activity that is run by the school. It doesn't matter how many waivers of liability get signed, ambulance chasers will be ambulance chasers

That may well be the key difference from when I was in school- lawyers didn't advertise back then and "ambulance chasers" were (relatively) scarce, compared to today's litigious society.

 

[Tulecreeper]

I took it in high school as a sophomore in the spring of 1974, the semester before I turned 16 (I turned 16 in the summer). It was an after school thing for a couple hours M/W/F and only lasted maybe 3 weeks. Then you could go to the DMV and get you learner's permit before you turned 16. I already knew how to drive because my dad had started teaching me on dirt roads when I was 12. And he taught me in a stick-shift Dodge truck.

 

[Isaac-1]

It was much the same here in Louisiana about a decade later, except minimum age for Drivers ed was 14, and license was 15, and it was an old Jeep, not a Dodge Truck

 

[Wasillaguy]

stick-shift Dodge truck

Neighbor had a '48 Dodge pickup I learned on. No synchronized gears, grind it until you find it.

 

[oldwildman]

Driving through Ohio in my car several years ago at a good clip in the left lane. Concrete berm and Jersey barrier in the middle. First thing I saw was a State cop backing up towards me on the berm at a fast rate. The next second I see a large object in the middle of my lane. Looked like a small garbage bag. Couldn't switch lanes as there was other traffic and was not about to do a full panic stop in the fast lane. And said cop was in the berm area. Turned out it was two yokes and part of a drive shaft from a big rig. They look a lot bigger when they're on the ground!

Took out my oil pan, exhaust resonator and fuel tank. Cop came over and checked on me. He didn't know what it was and I told him it was part of a big rig. 4 other cars were immobilized. Told the cop the rig will be easy to find as it had no power to wheels. Sure enough, it was able to coast up to a nearby exit and was parked there.

The good things were that my car was repairable but the only rental (covered by insurance) was a BMW. Had that for almost a month before the parts arrived for my car as I insisted on OEM.

 

[old_toys]

back about 2000 i was driving my Tahoe & 7.5x14 v-nose toy hauler back from Daytona bike week.
on I-10 i dodged a large well made suit case in the middle of the rt lane. was plenty of traffic behind me. i commented to my wife, somebody is going to hit that thing.
about 35miles down the pike i stopped for gasoline/pee break and this big suv with a trailer and bike pulled in the opposite side of the fuel pump. driver went inside the store and i noticed his rear fender torn up and the fender on the trailer ripped up. when he came back out i asked what happened, he said he hit a big suit case in the lane. then he told me it was full of camera equipment!!!! don't know what the odds of both of us using that service station at the same time.