Comment by givemeethekeys | Hacker News Reader

Comment by givemeethekeys | Hacker News Reader

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My mother passed her driving exam when she was 40. Pay for lessons. Pay attention. Breathe. Stay present.

Different things to gain an intuition for:

- Getting used to being in the driver's seat. Getting used to where everything is. Especially the turn signals (shoutout to my fellow BMW drivers).

- Getting used to acceleration, braking, holding your speed, steering, and turn signals.

- Getting used to the size of your car, it's outer edges, turning radius.

- Getting used to going in reverse.

- Driving in the neighborhoods vs. driving on the highway.

- Constantly being aware of all moving objects around you.

Do lots of driving. Check your mirrors all the time, even if you're not planning to change lanes. Keep enough distance from the person in front of you that you'll be able to react in time to anything they do. Use your turn signals - be as predictable as you can.

Driving on public roads is more like dancing in a group than racing. Going where you want, slowing down and speeding up - all need to be done in concert with everyone else on the dance floor in order avoid collisions.

With practice, driving will feel as natural as walking or running.

> Constantly being aware of all moving objects around you.

I think this is the biggest one, and it really matters: why is a person learning at 40? Was it random circumstances or have they been avoiding something that seems too challenging? In the latter case, they may have self-selected out of the driving pool for a reason that needs to be addressed carefully.

Have they spent 40 years riding in cars and developing situational awareness of traffic as a passive observer? Or do they treat car rides like an abstract teleporter, where they barely notice what happened from start to finish?

Or, do they have some anxiety or phobia about it? Kids tend to be more plastic and adaptive, as well as somewhat risk-blind. So they can usually get through that quickly. An adult may have more challenge overcoming the fear in order to function properly as a driver. It's not very safe or responsible to do this through solo practice, since being overly anxious can really interfere with the cognitive process you need in complex traffic.

If you were born, raised, and now work in NYC there’s no particular reason to learn to drive, and it’s not particularly easy if you’re in a family that doesn’t drive. I’ve been driving since I was 13 (not an NYC native) but go weeks some times without driving in NYC (and the primary reason I drive now is to go to my upstate secret getaway). Doesn’t need to be a major reason, decent urban areas with decent mass transit don’t particularly require individuals to learn to drive.

My main driving mantra is:

"Be as predictable as you can, but assume everyone is trying to kill you."

See all. Assume you are invisible. Occasionally you will be.

If you really assumed everyone is trying to kill you, you should really not go outside at all. Or if you see a car nearby, immediately swerve. You should probably never stop, at lights for example.

Fine. They're trying to kill you, but they also want to frame it as a suicide. Does that cover all bases?

That's too much in the other direction. To protect against that you would just have to wear a seatbelt and not go over certain speed, and not swerve into incoming traffic. If they wanted to suicide you, you would need to go faster to be able to do that without seatbelt and/or intentionally break some sort of laws/rules.

I think best to me is to assume other drivers are not paying a lot of attention unless there are obvious hints that they are and if you don't have visibility somewhere, assume that something could be there.

> I think best to me is to assume other drivers are not paying a lot of attention unless there are obvious hints that they are and if you don't have visibility somewhere, assume that something could be there.

Well, that's just absurd.

Assume they aren't paying attention? So it'd be accurate to say: assume they are trying to kill you.

Probably a better way of saying what they probably meant is "Always drive defensively"

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