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Comment by eskil | Hacker News Reader

Did your drivers ed/school teach you how to drive with a hood that's flipped up at highway speed? Mine didn't, then it happened to me.

(but yeah you're right)

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Mine did, actually. My instructor used a clipboard to block my field of view, and walked me through coming to a controlled stop with minimal visibility.

We didn't even cover highway driving in mine, let alone something like that.

In Germany part of the training in many schools involves getting to the nearest autobahn and going at least 120mph to teach you driving at such speeds. Yes,there are training courses which don't do that, but it's not uncommon.

From what I've heard the driving/licensing test in Germany is actually a test - in the United States the written test questions show a picture of a stop sign and ask what it means (there are then three multiple choice options).

The driving portion is not much more difficult.

Yeah, it involves quite complicated questions about driving (a diagram with yourself, a pedestrian, a cyclist, a tram, and 3 other cars - you have to specify who goes in what order), and also technical questions, like "your temperature gauge is going into the red zone - what do you do?" or "on a winter day your windows get foggy from inside when driving - what is the safest solution?", and also general question about laws "what is the bac limit?", "how fast can you go on the autobahn when the conditions are poor?"(answer:130km/h(~80mph)).

While I feel that US driver education and testing has many faults, I don't want everyone to have the impression that the test is as simple as 'What does a STOP sign mean?'. Hyperbole is good for humor but can be misguiding in a discussion about actual solutions.

While it has been some time since my driver's test, I remember somewhat complicated questions about right-of-way, dealing with vehicle problems, handling adverse driving conditions, and responding to potential accident situations. Of course, part of the problem I have with our driver education system is how much it varies among the states. Most of what is shared deals with the operations of highway driving, while I think there needs to be more requirements for overall safe driving.

Also, I was a little incredulous at first that 80 mph is the answer for 'poor' conditions. But, I suppose I have driven on 80 mph interstates here under extremely heavy rain while everyone maintained the speed limit. I suppose it's just one of those things where we have a different sense of scale.

While it may have been in isolation the "What does a STOP sign mean?" question is a question that I actually had on my written test.

I think it was phrased a bit differently, but that was the essential question. The multiple choice answers were also extremely leading with one being even more obviously correct than you would expect.

In California you're also able to take the test 3 times in a row if you fail it every time, you can then take it another three times immediately if you pay $20. Since there aren't many questions it's basically impossible to fail.

U.S.? If so, me too, and I think we have horribly insufficient driving instruction here. Maybe it varies by state, but yeah, we didn't go on the freeway, I didn't really learn how to parallel park, I didn't learn anything about highway ettiquette (i.e. keep right unless passing), etc.

I wish we were required to have many, many more training hours before being licensed, especially in the colder climates with icy conditions on the regular.

When I first had my license, I ran up the back of someone. After checking that the car wasn't too badly damaged and exchanging details I decided to drive the car the rest of the way home.

Was cruising along the freeway, when the bonnet (hood) flipped up. Thankfully, I could see through the gap, and managed to pull the car over safely.

Not my brightest moment.

Hoods blockage up is a comparatively common event in rally races. I've read that many teams specifically design the hood to leave a large gap if it flips up, thus allowing the driver to continue down the stage. This happened to a top driver at the latest Sno*Drift rally here in the US, and the video is pretty fun to watch.

http://youtu.be/c3fkwl2we14?t=7m18s

I actually remember them saying that hoods are designed to leave a small gap of visibility at the lowest part of the windshield when they fly up. I'm tall, and the instructor pointed out that I'd have to lean over/down to be able to see through it.

But I can think of a dozen other emergency situations they didn't cover.

The fact that you will never carry 500+ passengers in your car might be part of the reason.

Although I agree, driver training is abysmal, from what I see of people on the roads I swear they teach new drivers just enough to pass the test.

I did not successfully parallel park in my test and still passed. Thankfully I learned how on my own, but still.

Makes me glad they put those secondary latches on hoods now.

Driver training is astonishingly lax compared to pilot training. A huge portion of pilot training is dedicated to handling various emergencies.

As my pilot buddy says: "Flying is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror".

You should tell your pilot buddy to try gliders, much less boredom there.

The general spirit is, of course, still completely true.

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