Driving Your Own Road-Safety

     

A few years ago, UMPH saw a doco in which one pundit suggested that a big, sharp spike mounted in the centre of a vehicle's steering wheel would be a very effective road safety device, his theory being that the clear and present threat of a grisly death would ensure that the driver drove sensibly and thus avoided crashing in the first place.  The expert was probably only half joking but the thought has stayed in UMPH's mind ever since. 

It doesn't really matter if the spike-advocate was having a laugh, thinking laterally or was just plain mad, because his idea will never eventuate.  In fact, the safety aspect of vehicles' design and manufacture has now become one of their largest selling points and, rather than scaring motorists into driving more cautiously, the trend has been to cosset them more and more from any threat of harm through the ever-increasing use of technology.  

Take, for example, Ford's new Ranger utes (or pick-ups, if American readers prefer).  Joshua Dowling, National Motoring Editor for Australia's News Corp, bemoans that "... lane-departure warning, lane keeping assistance (it will correct the steering to stop you drifting from the lane), and radar cruise control that maintains a gap with the car ahead" are only available on the highest specced versions of said vehicle. 

Ford's new Ranger ute

Pity the poor bugger who can only afford the poverty-pac base model!  What if its standard, non-radar cruise control allowed it to just crash up the bum of the car in front?  How about the lack of lane-departure warning and lane-keeping assistance?  UMPH shudders to think of the consequences!

Of course, it's UMPH that's having a laugh now but, even so, he is only half joking.  Fatigue is a road safety issue.  So, too, is inattention.  Ergo, anything that alerts tired and / or inattentive drivers to an imminent crash is an undeniably good thing.

However, he does have to wonder if drivers' responsibility to actually drive vehicles, as opposed to being just another passenger, is diminishing to the point that they're really not that responsible at all.  It's sometimes called the Volvo effect and it comes about when drivers think they're so protected, so cocooned in their high-tech, safe-as-houses vehicles that they cannot possibly come to any harm.

Cars that can park themselves are becoming increasingly common.  There are others that brake automatically at lower speeds, just in case the driver hadn't noticed he or she was about to mow down a pedestrian or plow into a stationary bus.  Apparently, Google is working on a driver-less car.   

But think about this:  Twenty years ago, brake failure was probably a reasonable legal defence for rear-ending a car waiting at a red light, or for failing to slow sufficiently to negotiate a bend and spearing off the road (assuming the driver had made reasonable attempts to ensure his or her conveyance was road-worthy).  

Might today's equivalent be "It wasn't my fault, Your Honour; my lane keeping assistance system must have failed"?  Think about it.

Silly as it sounds, it mightn't be that silly.  It seems that some drivers, aided by the motoring industry, are able to abrogate their responsibility to actively manage their own safety and that of their passengers and other road users.

There are stories, possibly apocryphal, about drivers who have followed their sat-navs with such slavish devotion that they've made turns where no turns exist, crashing as a result.  True or not, there are some pretty stupid motorists out there - inattentive, drunk, stoned or simply inept.  Relying on technology to stop them killing themselves or other road users shouldn't be a replacement for teaching them to drive responsibly in the first place.  Maybe that spike's not such an outlandish idea?

   

UMPH

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au).

(All images sourced from the internet.)