Testing Britain's Worst Drivers - tv prog

[martine]

Well having just caught up with this program I have to say it's one of the best I've seen of it's type. It wasn't sensationalist and got some important points across.
It's available on ITV player for a couple of weeks more...

https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/testing-britain-s-worst-drivers-crash-course

[TheInsanity1234]

Just finished watching it.

Marvellous.

The nice thing was how they didn't bother focusing on the facts and statistics, and just focused on the reactions of the drivers concerned.

I agree with the man, every learner driver should go through the process of having an accident, just so they know what it feels like.

[martine]

I agree with the man, every learner driver should go through the process of having an accident, just so they know what it feels like.

I remember some years ago attending a road safety talk and the lecturer said when his children had passed their driving test he wanted them to come through the door late one night and tell him they'd just had an accident. The point being, they were alive, not seriously injured and had experienced the often frightening violence of an RTC.

[sussex2]

That's fine let them go ahead and have a collision as long as:

1/. They only damage their own property.
2/. Any injury is to themselves.
3/. They fend off/deal with the forces of law and order themselves; and the insurance company.
4/. Any final bill is addressed to them and settled by them.

Even the notion that it is somehow good to have a collision in the early stages of a driving career is IMO utter nonsense.

[Carbon Based]

Certainly wanting someone to have an accident is somewhat perverse.

But in the absence of that experience, I wonder what it is that is the motivation to change behaviour?

Someone, on another forum, listed one of the key qualities of a good (advanced if you like) driver is an active imagination. Without that, you don't have a sense of what might happen.

Perhaps it is a near miss, sometimes some other life factor (birth of child etc) that adds a sense of responsibility for your actions. Even then, something probably needs to provide a sense of proportion, the likelihood of a problem arising and the scale of impact if it did go wrong.

I'd suggest that very few people would actually admit to being reckless. Yet how many drive in a way such that their opinion of the risks they are creating is very different to yours?

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

Even the notion that it is somehow good to have a collision in the early stages of a driving career is IMO utter nonsense.

Agree.

If there was a way for it to happen and involve only them, it may have some beneficial effect on their mental attitude, but there is no guaranteed way for that to happen.

[martine]

Even the notion that it is somehow good to have a collision in the early stages of a driving career is IMO utter nonsense.

Agree.

If there was a way for it to happen and involve only them, it may have some beneficial effect on their mental attitude, but there is no guaranteed way for that to happen.

I think you're both taking the story much too literally. The point was he thought their over-confidence and under-skill (very common in young drivers) would be tempered by an RTC and wanted them to be scared/upset enough for it to sink in before they had a serious one.

I've often wondered if rather than prosecuting young idiot drivers they should accompany a traffic police patrol to a serious RTC.

[TheInsanity1234]

I think you're both taking the story much too literally. The point was he thought their over-confidence and under-skill (very common in young drivers) would be tempered by an RTC and wanted them to be scared/upset enough for it to sink in before they had a serious one.

I've often wondered if rather than prosecuting young idiot drivers they should accompany a traffic police patrol to a serious RTC.

That's what I think too.

The emotions and shock that result from experiencing an accident would go quite a way in helping people understand why seemingly pointless habits are important.

One good thing would be to show what could result from failing to do a life-saver check.

I recall watching a TV programme (It was a documentary following traffic police, can't remember which one), but there was a policeman who had to attend a unpleasant RTC between I think 2 cars and a bike, and it was a situation where a car rear-ended a bike that had intended to turn right, and the bike was shunted forwards by about a metre, but it was enough to put him in the path of a red-light runner, and the cyclist was badly side-swept and died on the spot.

I also witnessed a near-miss a few years back where a cyclist was crossing a mini-roundabout, and an elderly lady (You know the sort, drives a Micra, and looks through the steering wheel) failed to give way to the cyclist, and the cyclist almost fell over because he had to brake so harshly, but he managed to avoid her and carried on.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I'm sorry, but with respect, I'm still going to disagree with both of you. I think you've seen too much TV, and played too many games. You don't just press "reset" after a traffic collision, or switch off the TV and go to bed. Suggesting people would benefit from an experience that at the same time might kill them, is just playing with people's lives far too irresponsibly. Even suggesting that people should be forced to experience the trauma of seeing mangled bodies (that were previously real people) on the road, just to make them think, is also sensationalist nonsense. Members of the emergency services live with those scenes for the rest of their lives, and many of them need counselling as a result.

There must be a better kind of education that doesn't involve that kind of unacceptable risk.

[TheInsanity1234]

I'm sorry, but with respect, I'm still going to disagree with both of you. I think you've seen too much TV, and played too many games. You don't just press "reset" after a traffic collision, or switch off the TV and go to bed. Suggesting people would benefit from an experience that at the same time might kill them, is just playing with people's lives far too irresponsibly. Even suggesting that people should be forced to experience the trauma of seeing mangled bodies (that were previously real people) on the road, just to make them think, is also sensationalist nonsense. Members of the emergency services live with those scenes for the rest of their lives, and many of them need counselling as a result.

There must be a better kind of education that doesn't involve that kind of unacceptable risk.

I fear you may have misunderstood me and Martine.

We're not suggesting that we put people in a real collision.

We're suggesting that we put them in a simulated collision, where they can be driving a simulator and doing their thing, then suddenly experience the collision.

I suspect you may not have actually watched the documentary.

If you have not, then what it does is put two drivers who are dangerous drivers, one a man who is very reckless, and another is a lady who is constantly on her phone.

They both were made to go into a simulator which controlled an actual car on a private road network and told that they were spending a day with an advanced driving instructor to improve their driving.

They then ended up in a collision with a robotic car which simulated what their driving would have been like in that situation.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

Well, if you were, it's well concealed:

I agree with the man, every learner driver should go through the process of having an accident, just so they know what it feels like.

OK, so you said "should go through the process". Perhaps I misunderstood that one. How much do you think that would cost, in the way it was done in the TV programme? Who would bear that cost?

the lecturer said when his children had passed their driving test he wanted them to come through the door late one night and tell him they'd just had an accident

I don't think simulators came into this scenario.

I've often wondered if rather than prosecuting young idiot drivers they should accompany a traffic police patrol to a serious RTC.

How do you propose that should be simulated?

I think, actually, you've got caught up in the "they should experience it for themselves, that'll teach them" emotion, and are now trying to backtrack a bit. I agree the programme showed a possible way of creating an environment that demonstrated, to some extent, what a road traffic collision is like, but it has some very serious drawbacks:

- it would be incredibly expensive. For each candidate in the programme, they used up a day of filming, wrote off numerous cars (probably scrappers in some cases, but perfectly good in others), and had perhaps 30 staff on hand, a fire engine ... very expensive simulator equipment, use of an off-road driving facility... the list goes on...

- now the programme has been broadcast, that tactic will never work again. Everyone will know what's going to happen, and there'll be no shock factor.

[TheInsanity1234]

Well, if you were, it's well concealed:

I agree with the man, every learner driver should go through the process of having an accident, just so they know what it feels like.

OK, so you said "should go through the process". Perhaps I misunderstood that one. How much do you think that would cost, in the way it was done in the TV programme? Who would bear that cost?

Well, students could pay to do this, and it could be subsidised by the government, as this might be very effective at improving the standards of drivers so the savings made by the reduction in fatal injuries may pay for it?

I've often wondered if rather than prosecuting young idiot drivers they should accompany a traffic police patrol to a serious RTC.

How do you propose that should be simulated?

This part obviously won't be simulated?

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I suspect you may not have actually watched the documentary.

Wrong.

If you have not, then what it does is put two drivers who are dangerous drivers, one a man who is very reckless, and another is a lady who is constantly on her phone.

They both were made to go into a simulator which controlled an actual car on a private road network and told that they were spending a day with an advanced driving instructor to improve their driving.

They then ended up in a collision with a robotic car which simulated what their driving would have been like in that situation.

Except that the second one misfired, and the collision didn't happen. 4 cars were totalled, but the lady didn't see it happen. When they told her what had happened, she was not particularly shocked or impressed. She was still rather blasé and smiling at that stage. They walked her round the crash scene, and she tried to look shocked, but I wasn't convinced. In the wrap-up, she appeared to be contrite, and resolved to change her ways, but I wonder if you went back a year later, whether she would still be the convert she appeared to be in the programme...?

[TheInsanity1234]

I suspect you may not have actually watched the documentary.

Wrong.

Well then, I'm not sure how we've ended up at such cross purposes.

If you have not, then what it does is put two drivers who are dangerous drivers, one a man who is very reckless, and another is a lady who is constantly on her phone.

They both were made to go into a simulator which controlled an actual car on a private road network and told that they were spending a day with an advanced driving instructor to improve their driving.

They then ended up in a collision with a robotic car which simulated what their driving would have been like in that situation.

Except that the second one misfired, and the collision didn't happen. 4 cars were totalled, but the lady didn't see it happen. When they told her what had happened, she was not particularly shocked or impressed. She was still rather blasé and smiling at that stage. They walked her round the crash scene, and she tried to look shocked, but I wasn't convinced. In the wrap-up, she appeared to be contrite, and resolved to change her ways, but I wonder if you went back a year later, whether she would still be the convert she appeared to be in the programme...?

Indeed.
I couldn't be bothered to detail it, as I only wanted to give you a quick sum up of what happened.

But yeah, the lady didn't seem very affected by the situation at all.

That "good" driver did seem to be rather affected by it though. Perhaps she genuinely was, or very good acting

[Horse]

Re the 'learners experiencing a crash', isn't this partly how skid courses work?

Re 'every learner', check Youtube for the Dutch driving test where real test candidates were told that a newly-imposed test element meant that they had to send a text while negotiating a course.

We already have off-road DVSA test centres for the Module 1 bike test, so if there was the will . . .