ADVICE FOR NEW DRIVERS (from elsewhere) RUNNING WITH SCISSORS AND A BIG BAG OF C

ADVICE FOR NEW DRIVERS

(from elsewhere)

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS AND A BIG BAG OF CONCRETE

I rode a ran a lot, bicycled a lot, drove minibikes, and motorcycles. But when my mother taught me how to drive a manual truck in a school parking lot – even with all that experience – I was surprised at how different it was sitting on, and piloting, all that mass.

The primary difference that I notice, between each increasingly massive vehicle (up to a B52 bomber, which starts slowly turning a few miles after you move the stick) is that you shift your perception out to the limit of your vision, and slowly pilot the car in an arc toward that limit of your vision.

Most drivers start out trying to plan movements like they’re walking or riding a bicycle – thinking at ‘human scale’. As if we can turn, weave, stop, when we way a ton or two. It would be awesome if cars turned more slowly, for introductory drivers, so that they were FORCED to drive by slow correction of long arcs. Unfortunately cars are agile (and need to be for slow speeds). But basically the faster you go the longer the arc you have to aim at in the distance.

Pick up something heavy, run with it as fast as you can, and then try to turn, and try to stop. Feel it. Now imagine you’re carrying twenty times your weight, and trying to turn or stop. The surface area of your foot is roughly equal to the surface area of a tire on the road. In optimum circumstances, the car has four feet touching the ground instead of two. But otherwise the car has the same problem that you do. Now, take the same heavy thing and try to make small adjustments in your course in order to reach the next curve that you can see out in the distance.

ASIDE FROM MASS – THINK PARANOID

The other things are (a) you are invisible to everyone else, always. (if you ride in a blind spot (behind to the left or right) you are asking to get hit. Even if you can see the driver’s eyes, it doesn’t mean he sees you. It means only that he might see you. (c) Other drivers don’t drive logically, they drive impulsively, intuitively, habitually, with the least intellectual effort, lowest concentration, and with their minds on something else. (b) If you can’t see into any space, it means something is there that’s trying to kill you.

ASIDE FROM PARANOIA – THINK

(c) You cannot ever really take your eyes off the road for longer than it takes you to blink. (d) It takes WAAAY longer to slow down and stop than you think, and so always obey 1 car length per 10 miles per hour of velocity no matter what. (e) passing people is the best way to get into an accident. (f) never hurry when driving. (g) Never try to optimize your drive time within the flow of traffic, only prior to a flow of traffic.

SUMMARY

Basically, drive completely paranoid, and in small movements of the wheel, targeting as far in the distance as you can ‘arc’, and don’t try to be cunning. The only smart driver is the one who leaves early enough that he doesn’t have to rush. Keep music and audio books in the car to entertain you.

There… that’s my good deed for the day. lol