The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum New Vehicles ... Old Speed Limits :: EUROPE vs USA

Hello Pilgrim,
i totally Agree with you: in the United States, getting a Drivers License is a joke, basically they teach you some rules, but they do not teach you how to drive, and once you are Licensed, you can sit on a 400+hp Car like anything.

I am originally from Italy... getting a Drivers License there is a process that takes months, and once you get the Drivers License, you are not even allowed to Drive Vehicles that have more than 100Hp.

YES I SAY IT AGAIN:
YOU CAN ONLY DRIVE CARS WITH 100HP OR LESS

To get a Car with more Power, you need to have 3 years of experience OR you can take an Advanced Driving School where they teach you how to proper Drive a Car.

{personally, i have done this Driving School 3 Months after i got my Italian Drivers Licnense so that i could Drive Powerful Cars in Italy}


~~~
Such Driving School, is a School where they make you Drive Cars with NO ABS or STABILITY CONTROL and in which they simulate common situations that happen when normally driving on a Road such as:


- Avoiding an Obstacle at 45mph on Wet Asphalt
(this happened many times to every driver in the world: someone pulls out from a Driveway right in front of you...)

SCHOOL VIDEO: " "
(this guy Failed the test)


- Avoiding an Obstacle during a Curve at 70mph
SCHOOL VIDEO: " "
(this guy passed the test)


- Emergency Braking with the 2 Right Tires on a Slippery Pad (it's a Rubber Pad Wet with Water that simulates Wet Grass on the side of the Road... commonly when you Brake you tend to get with your tires on the Grass and the Car Slips Sideways)
[sorry no video]


- Taking a Curve with the 2 Inside Tires on the Slippery Pad
(again a Wet Rubber Pad that simulates the Grass that you clip During a Curve while mistakenly tightening too much the Turn)
[sorry no video]


- Hydroplaning Control
(they make you drive on a 3inch deep pond while driving straight at 60mph or on a curve at 30mph)

SCHOOL VIDEO: " "
(this girl passed the test)


- Counter Steering
(in this Test they mount a Cart with Dolly Wheels under the Rear Tires, this simulates the very common situation in which the Car slips during a Turn almost like if you were on Ice... the instinct makes you want to use the Brake, but the only thing that can actually save you is giving some Throttle and Counter Steer)

SCHOOL VIDEO: " "
(the driver is a School Instructor)
[i have personally failed this Test 3 times before i was able to pass it... the hard part was that after 2 fails, you have to wait 30 days to retry the test...]


~~~ - ~~~
The key in most of these Test is to never let the Fear take control over you and touch the Brake Pedal... once you Touch the Brake, you lose Control of the Car, 90% of the times, the best way to avoid and obstacle is to keep pressing the Throttle a little bit and drive around it!
~~~ - ~~~

Off course the Driving School is not only Practical, even in Italy, like in the US, there is a lot of Theory to do, and when i mean a Lot... I MEAN A LOT: the test is a 90 questions (True or False) and you can miss only 4 of them, and those questions include also Dynamic Driving questions, like Weight Transfers in a Car with questions like:

- "When you Brake, the majority of the Weight of the Car transfers to the Front Wheels" [TRUE] [FALSE]
{true}

- "During a Turn the Inside Wheels lose about 15% of the Weight, but during a Chicane, on the Second Turn the Inside Wheels lose about 30% of the Weight" [TRUE] [FALSE]
{true}

- "If you Brake During a Turn, you are Transferring the Weight of the Car to the Front and to the Side Simultaneously, this will make the Rear Inside Tire lose almost all the Weight Load and so lose Grip making the Car Slide Sideways" [TRUE] [FALSE]
{true}



to me, knowing these notions are vital and they saved my life in quite few occasions, i really can't understand why in the US they don't teach this to People... i am pretty confident that over 80% of US Drivers, if they were sent to Italy to do some of those Driving Tests i showed you before, would fail.

~~~



YET I KNOW THAT:

by increasing the Speed Limits from 70 to 80mph nothing changes, first of all because modern Cars can go much faster than that and in good safety (i have a Honda Fit and i have personally Driven it at over 100mph and it felt just perfectly stable on the Road) BUT the main thing is that Vehicles are Crash Tested for Safety at 40mph... in Germany, where they recently started doing Crash Test at 50mph they found out that Cars that had 5 stars in 40mph Crashes, suddenly go down to 3 or even 2 stars for just 10mph increase... and if you think that 2 Vehicles that collide head on at 20mph already obtain a 40mph crash (when do Vehicles collide head on at 20mph???) then we get killed in the same way at 70mph as well as 80 or 90mph.

SADLY: Car manufactorers found the way to obtain just the 5 Starts by Engineering Vehicles perfectly to pass the Tests, but those Test really do not match what the Common Road Accidents are... i really hope that soon, both NHTSA and IIHS start increasing the Front Crash Tests Speed to at least 50mph because otherwise, they are almost pointless.

REGARDS