As a nurse, what's her risk of spreading it to someone with a much, much greater risk of death?
We can take this stupid premise to its logical end and never do anything out of fear that we might eventually harm someone else, but that's not how life has gone on for millennia. We have the vaccine which is the solution, by and large the data supports that the sustained overreaction is now disproportionate to the actual risks, time to let the science we supposedly all believe in aka natural selection run its course.
There are people who don't have kids of their own because of the high risk of passing potentially fatal genetic defects to their children. If you are an at risk epileptic, driving regularly is something you should avoid.
If an you are contemplating an activity that has a significant risk of causing harm to others, you have a moral obligation to consider if the benefits are big enough to be worth that risk.
If you have a higher than average level of contact with vulnerable populations, you should take higher than normal precautions to reduce your chances of infection. This is just basic moral common sense.
The US in general has super lax driving tests. Here in Denmark it's about 3 months of theoretical classes side-by-side with driving with a certified driving instructor. We also learn the basics of cars on a closed track, and later learn to drive in slippery conditions on the same closed tracks. The closed-track tests include being able to catch the car after pulling the handbrake in a turn while going 80 km/h (50 mph).
Oh, and to actually get your license you also have to drive 45 minutes with a police official checking your every move.
We are a somewhat globalized civilization and the same as this security theatre about keeping airports open with countries with 2% vaccination rate can be said about driving.
Also, the whole test seems to be set up like a gold rush for lawyers - if you actually managed to slide the car and roll over at 50 mph you are almost certain to have some injuries not to mention the damage to the car. Who is liable for those, the government that ordered the driver to execute a dangerous maneuver in order to obtain a driving license? What if the driver dies from the injuries?
Yes, that's what will happen if you brake the rear wheels (what the handbrake does) in a turn.
The point isn't that you'd ever do that, of course, but to simulate the rear end of the car sliding which can happen if you hit ice, oil or even uneven water patches. Can you control that slide? It's really awesome if Denmark is including car control in the test. The US should do the same.
I strongly encourage you (everyone) to find a car control clinic in your area and participate. Even a single weekend will raise your car control skills significantly if you've never had any instruction before.
Newer cars have a lot of traction control magic that try to save you and often do, but there's still no substitute for the driver having skills as well.
Sure the DMV manual will tell you to steer into the skid, but there's no way to learn this muscle memory without practice and the most productive practice is with a good instructor.
(I used to instruct the BMW club car control clinics (open to all cars) before life got too busy, hopefully will take it up again in the future.)
> Also, the whole test seems to be set up like a gold rush for lawyers
OP said this was in Denmark, so presumably every little thing isn't a "gold rush for lawyers" unlike in the USA.
And I have not seen a car where a handbrake could lock wheels even on idle, least on driving in gear at 50 mph. I don't doubt such breaks exist, rally cars supposed to have them, but on my car, for instance, all that is going to happen if I pull the handbrake flap in gear is nothing and if I hold it for 5 seconds it will do an emergency stop using its ESC,ABS and all kinds of smart technology (I think it's also supposed to move to the shoulder and turn on hazards but I never really tried it). It won't slide for sure. How am I supposed to pass a test like that? Rent a 500K rally car?
>OP said this was in Denmark, so presumably every little thing isn't a "gold rush for lawyers" unlike in the USA
People can just kill themselves on orders from government in Denmark? Sounds like the country not to take as an example to me.
An upgraded handbrake doesn't seem far-fetched.
Mind you, you don't need to lock the rear wheels to induce oversteer (rear sliding out).
All you need to do is to make the rear wheel braking force be higher than the front wheel braking force while turning. Which in this case, since there is zero braking force on the front wheels, doesn't take much at all. A very quick pull on the handbrake will do it.
If you ever drive a race car with an adjustable brake bias control (changes percentage of braking force front/rear) it's easy to experience it doesn't take much rear bias to induce a spin if braking in a turn, even though none of the wheels ever lock.
Which one specifically? I've never encountered one and a brief web search didn't find any. I'm sure it can exist, but seems exceedingly rare at best.
I mean this in the most encouraging way possible: your comments (this and previous) suggest you have zero experience with car control. I greatly encourage you to find and participate in a few car control clinics to see how cars actually behave on the edge of adhesion and beyond. It's a great learning experience and also just fun. Most importantly, if you ever do hit ice/oil/etc, it might just save you from a crash.
> People can just kill themselves on orders from government in Denmark?
No need to be silly. Surely these tests are done in a suitable location, and there's zero risk from a bit of a slide or spin. Again, something you could experience and learn in a car control class so it stops becoming scary.
> No need to be silly. Surely these tests are done in a suitable location
My tests were done in the middle of a former cold war airstrip. This link should show the complex in a satellite view: https://www.google.com/maps/place/K%C3%B8reteknisk+Anl%C3%A6...
Notice the darker patch of tarmac. That is extra-slippery when wet and has a sprinkler system on the grass next to it.
And thanks for your concern about my car control, you don't seem to be talking about the things I mentioned though: the lack of parking brakes on many cars and the lack of parking brake capable to lock wheels on many more. I am not going to go to your clinic anyways so if you don't want to talk on the topic I will bow out.
Besides, you just informed me that spinning out is completely safe and won't harm me so why again I need to train for that?
> Besides, you just informed me that spinning out is completely safe and won't harm me so why again I need to train for that?
You're not discussing in good faith so I won't continue.
Spinning out in a training facility (generally a large parking lot) is perfectly safe, it's a training area. Spinning out in traffic on a windy road, not so much. That's why you should train first in a safe space with instructors, before driving on public roads.
Spinning out at 50 mph is not safe anywhere as you can easily rollover, I pity people who go into your clinic as you don't seem to have a slightest clue.
Sounds good to me. Let's require regular re-testing while we're at it.
Similarly I think people should consider the risk to others if they get this pathogen rather than just the risk to themselves.
The solution is to get rid of cars as a primary mode of transport, and I really do think we should do that!
1: https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-overconfident-...
This really isn't remotely analogous, particularly since you absolutely can know you're at risk of spreading COVID.
Your version applies to cars too! By driving a car, you are at risk of causing a car crash!
With COVID, you can. Pretty easily.
Certainly, anyone who receives a positive PCR test for COVID should quarantine ASAP. But if you're incubating COVID, but not infectious yet, the tests will return negative. A test only tells you whether you were infectious at the time of the test, so by the time you've seen the results, the information is already outdated.
No. That wouldn't be a particularly useful statement.
Dismissing the aggregate risks solely based on your own is short sighted.
It's not like we are aware that there are certain drivers that are 100x more likely to kill certain members of the population.
And if we were aware that certain ways of driving made you 100x more likely to kill someone, people would AT LEAST be talking about banning them.
Like, if teenagers could drive around drunk just find and not kill themselves or other teenagers somehow - they probably wouldn't care if only old, sick people ended up dead from their driving. People would probably make rules or at least talk about making rules to prevent this.
But that's not how driving really works.
the treatment risk calculation is also entirely different, since "someone with a much, much greater risk of death" is already flirting with death in other material ways.
also, no assumption was involved, just the simple logic of multiplying two tiny numbers resulting in another tiny number.