Hacker News Reader

Please stop thinking that one can know how “the states” are from a distance. The US is quite large and diverse. I’ve lived in four states and they were each significantly different in terms of legal structures, policies, culture, daily life etc. As an American I would rarely claim to know how things are in “the states.” I only know the parts I’ve lived in, or the few things that are actually federal in nature.

The US may be more homogeneous than Europe given its shorter history and mostly common language, but it’s far from some uniform block that you can summarize from what you saw on TV or a tourist visit to New York.

As someone who has had a driver's license in the US for a very long time, my experience is that--as with many things--one of the main things that makes you a better driver is putting in hours driving. Could you move more of those hours into a supervised learning environment? Probably. But you do that at the cost of making getting a license more difficult, expensive, and exclusive (in an environment where driving is often not an optional thing if someone wants to make a living).

I'm not sure how "more expensive training" eliminates some people texting while driving.

> I'm not sure how "more expensive training" eliminates some people texting while driving.

You can do and the other. It's not about eliminating. If someone is great at something that doesn't mean that they're good at teaching that skill. Further, just because someone drove for a long time doesn't mean they're a good driver. Likely they've improved, but it hasn't been checked.

When I got my license I learned about a lot of changes that older drivers weren't aware of.

> But you do that at the cost of making getting a license more difficult, expensive, and exclusive

A country can change their car reliance. It's also strange to focus on the cost of the license, while not checking if better drivers would result in lower costs elsewhere. E.g. reduced accidents (lower insurance), less medical costs, etc.

It would probably be great if everyone could take a high-end week-long defensive driving course. That's also not very realistic. I'm not sure the typical driver's ed imparts any particularly unique insights that generally responsible adult drivers don't have.

"A country can change their car reliance."

Not to be bleak, but I doubt this will happen for a long time, if ever, in the US. It -may- happen regionally among a state or two, but good luck getting multiple states to coordinate on a project like this.

We can't even get things like voting centers done properly, so how in the world are we going to implement public transit? There is no incentive for politicians, and I bet the car industry would quickly give them incentives otherwise if they even attempted it.

You've got a point in general, but here specifically I don't think OP was wrong.

The US definitely has an overarching philosophy, regardless of differing per-state policies. From my own experience with one of the more restrictive states in the US, all that is required to get a driving license is a written test and a road test once you reach 18 years old. Most people want to get their license before then, so they opt into training classes with an instructor and a car with dual controls. But that isn't required. I don't know how things are in the other more restrictive states, but I'd guess what I said goes for at least 90% of the country.

One thing that was darned frustrating (but in my opinion a good idea) with the UK driving licence test is that the theory test includes a section on hazard perception, where you watch a series of videos and click when you spot something that is turning into a hazard. You need to click at the point where there is enough evidence from what you can see that the hazard may exist, regardless of whether the driver actually needed to take any avoidance action. It teaches you to look ahead, not just respond to what is happening right now. And yes, I took two attempts to pass it.

These are things like a small child that you could previously see on the pavement has disappeared behind an obstruction (so may suddenly step out into the road). Or a football coming across the road from a playing field (a child may run after it). Or a car on a side street going at a speed that is inconsistent with them stopping at the junction.

> In the US, unless things are different from TV, you can get trained by someone else with a license in a regular car and do an exam.

Be cautious about believing TV drama is realistic. States I’m familiar with require 30 hours of licensed classroom instruction and 6 hours of licensed driving instruction beyond the training via a parent or other adult.

In any case, no amount of training seems to stop people from using their phone while driving.

I'm teaching my kids, insurance companies stopped giving any discount for drivers ed. My daughters all passed the exam to get a learning license on the first try. I made them read the dmv book, on the state website. I also quizzed them on various scenarios. They have friends who took classes and still failed the exam multiple times.

IMHO, the problem has more to do with the entitlement around driving. People don't view it as a privilege.

> I'm teaching my kids, insurance companies stopped giving any discount for drivers ed.

What's not clear is the difficulty of the test. Class based training, I'm not a fan. Only 6 hours of actual driving seems very minimal. Learning through another: they'll likely pick up bad habits.

> They have friends who took classes and still failed the exam multiple times.

That's good. Here it's a practical exam that often takes various tried to get. Plus theoretical one. It includes loads of things. Not just knowledge, but also e.g. judgement about safety. So in case something is unsafe the answer isn't "yes, it is legal", but more of a "there's a hazard".

From my perspective it's more difficult to unlearn a bad habit than to leach it properly (and immediately address something) right from the start. And it's great that some are good drivers, but I'm more concerned with the amount of bad drivers passing their "skill" to someone else.

>IMHO, the problem has more to do with the entitlement around driving. People don't view it as a privilege.

Large parts of the US have little to no public transit, and can only be accessed via car. You can't say driving isn't an entitlement and then arrange your infrastructure in such a way as to require driving.

Welcome to the USA. You shouldn't, but you certainly can and we have. Read any laws about driving licenses and reasons for suspension.

The problem is that the laws are trying to thread a needle between two entirely contradictory ideas - that it is both well and normal to build the world in a matter that expects everyone to drive - and that driving is a privilege that can be revoked from you.

You can't legislate, or law your way out of a basic contradiction in your society, so we end up in a middle ground where nobody is happy.

For another example of a basic contradiction - we allow and encourage people to drive intoxicated (After all, bars have parking lots, and do not enforce that every group have a designated driver), but not too intoxicated, and not in a manner that is too unlucky. The bar between the two is either an objective test from a breathalyzer device (a test that you can't take until you are pulled over - and one sets the bar too low for many people, in my opinion), or a fully subjective test of 'did you get into an auto accident, while sitting at 0.05 BAC'?

> People don't view it as a privilege.

It's difficult to view it as a privilege in a society that, over the past 70 years, was deliberately constructed with the expectation that everyone drives.

I did not have a driver's license prior to moving to the US.

The process was getting it was doing a multiple-choice quiz, followed by 20 minutes of paid 'instruction' as I drove around the neighborhood... And then a 'test' that repeated the exact same route. I 'passed' with a score of 83/100.

In contrast, I failed the test four times, while taking it in BC, and because it would have to be scheduled 3 months in advance, eventually gave up on it.

I am glad that the test-taker feels confident that after I stumble-assed my way through driving 20 and 25 mph on empty residential streets, I am now capable of safely driving on freeways.

>In the US, unless things are different from TV, you can get trained by someone else with a license in a regular car and do an exam.

What is this TV source you speak of? 11 o-clock news? Seinfeld?

> Over here, you need a driving instructor in an adapted car (dual controls),

Same.

> ...and depending on how well you pick it up, spend anywhere between 15 and 50 (or sometimes more) hours practicing driving and traffic rules.

Yup. We do that too.

> There's a written / theoretical exam you have to study for (traffic rules), then a practical exam with an examiner.

Again, we do that as well.

> In my case, it cost me about €2500 in lessons to get my driver's license. Then I spent another €1500 or so on top of that to get my motorcycle driver's license, where there's even more emphasis on personal safety and safe driving.

That is a lot of money.

> With that in mind, I'm confident in my claim that Dutch drivers are better than American ones.

The ones on TV or in your imagination?

> and getting more and more tighter.

It seems it's a trend to put more and more laws, red tape and regulations around driving in certain countries, and really around young people in general. All that voted by an aging population (who don't have to submit to the same requirements since their "rights" are grandfathered!) that's increasingly afraid of young people.

That coupled with the out of control unemployment numbers for young adults in the EU and sky high cost of everything makes me wonder what the brain drain situation is in Europe. You meet a lot of young talented and educated Europeans engineers in the Bay Area for instance, are there the same number of Americans ones in Europe?

> Over here, you need a driving instructor in an adapted car (dual controls), and depending on how well you pick it up, spend anywhere between 15 and 50 (or sometimes more) hours practicing driving and traffic rules. There's a written / theoretical exam you have to study for (traffic rules), then a practical exam with an examiner.

> In my case, it cost me about $2500 in lessons to get my driver's license. Then I spent another $1500 or so on top of that to get my motorcycle driver's license, where there's even more emphasis on personal safety and safe driving.

I see how driving schools and bureaucrats in charge of examination might like this guaranteed work. No innovation required, and grandfathered right to licenses issued to older drivers (so good support from an aging population).

Yay. Let’s make driving a perk of being rich.

All you poor schmucks can hoof it.

To a large extent, car ownership is already a perk of being “rich.” Looks how many people have trouble getting to voting locations or to vaccination sites.

The requirements in my US state are very similar to yours, except the amount of time you need to spend with a licensed instructor in an adapted car is fixed (don't remember the number). But after that, and before you can take your practical exam, you're required to spend a significant (fixed minimum) amount of time driving with a parent or guardian in the passenger seat.

And the cost is far less than the nearly $3000 you paid.

> you're required to spend a significant (fixed minimum) amount of time driving with a parent or guardian in the passenger seat.

That seems pretty unsafe from my viewpoint. Just because you can drive doesn't mean you can teach/instruct. I think people here generally do 20 hours of driving with a licensed instructor. There's no minimum I think, it's just that the (practical) exam is expensive so people only do the exam when you think you're good to go. Licensed instructors are also rated on the how often someone successfully passes an exam.

You're only allowed to drive with a parent after classroom instruction and driving with an instructor for the required amount of hours and passing. So it's not unsafe at all, because where you'd be allowed to just start driving on your own, my state requires you to drive with a parent for X hours before that.