I was reading the article in Autoweek magazine August 4th, 2014 issue, Piston Slap by Mark Vaughn, and its written with a lot of humor... and he concludes that to get a drivers license in the USA, you have to A) parallel park without killing 14 people and B) causing 72 million dollars in damages.
It's obvious that other countries with higher speed limits like Germany, and other European countries take driving licenses far more seriously, and the USA will give one to any 16 year old that can pass a 50 question test they can look up online, that has little to do with driving safely, and a operations test that doesn't judge them in the dark, or foggy, rainy, snowy, or icy roads... and auto renews a license without a physical check to verify the drivers health and eyesight.
Mark points out that there are 35,000 deaths from traffic accidents each year, but nothing done to make getting a license more focused on testing for safer driving skills.
He wrote a funny article, and I've been a shill for Autoweek so long they ought to send me a free subscription... but anyway, he got me thinking about the ridiculous idea that a drivers license in the USA is given with little safety testing, and no driving in normal conditions other than whatever the weather happens to deliver for the 20 minutes or so a kid gets behind the wheel with an instructor that focuses on parallel parking and rail road crossings... actually questions 2 and 3 below on the written test as well as my sarcastic example of driving instructors. This is pathetic.
It's obvious that other countries with higher speed limits like Germany, and other European countries take driving licenses far more seriously, and the USA will give one to any 16 year old that can pass a 50 question test they can look up online, that has little to do with driving safely, and a operations test that doesn't judge them in the dark, or foggy, rainy, snowy, or icy roads... and auto renews a license without a physical check to verify the drivers health and eyesight.
Mark points out that there are 35,000 deaths from traffic accidents each year, but nothing done to make getting a license more focused on testing for safer driving skills.
He wrote a funny article, and I've been a shill for Autoweek so long they ought to send me a free subscription... but anyway, he got me thinking about the ridiculous idea that a drivers license in the USA is given with little safety testing, and no driving in normal conditions other than whatever the weather happens to deliver for the 20 minutes or so a kid gets behind the wheel with an instructor that focuses on parallel parking and rail road crossings... actually questions 2 and 3 below on the written test as well as my sarcastic example of driving instructors. This is pathetic.
from the California state DMV http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/interactive/tdrive/clc2written.htm