January 2020 – The Wise Drive

January 26, 2020July 18, 2024

Sunset, Dusk, and Headlights

Q: I recently found out that headlights are required 30 minutes after dusk. Wouldn’t it make more sense to require headlights before it gets dark instead of after? And if someone doesn’t have their headlights on at night is it okay to flash my lights to let them know?

A: You’re absolutely right about it making sense to turn headlights on before it gets dark. And based on the word count in your question, you’re roughly 95 percent right about the law. The law doesn’t used the word “dusk”; it uses “sunset.” On a side note, wouldn’t it be great if our correctness was judged on how many words we got right instead of the overall level of accuracy of a statement based on one incorrect word? Okay, maybe that’s a terrible idea, but anyone with good grammar could be factually wrong a lot and still have a high correctness score.

January 19, 2020July 18, 2024

Giving the Signal

Q: Do I have to use my turn signal, even if there is no one around? Do I have to keep my turn signal on when I’m stuck at a light at an intersection? After a while the blinking gets pretty annoying.

A: Is there a revolt brewing against the consistent use of turn signals? In the last few weeks it’s come up repeatedly in conversations I’ve had and in questions sent to me.

It seems like drivers wanted turn signals long before car manufacturers were willing to install them. In 1907 Percy Douglas-Hamilton applied for the first patent for turn signals. His system used lights shaped like hands, because at that time people used hand signals to indicate their turns. In 1914 Florence Lawrence invented a turn signal system. (Florence’s mother invented automatic windshield wipers; quite an innovative family.) Then there was the Protex Safety Signal Company in 1920, Edgar Waltz, Jr. in 1925, and Oscar Simler in 1929.

January 12, 2020July 18, 2024

How Realistic is Target Zero?

Q: You say the goal of Target Zero is to eliminate all fatal crashes, but that’s not a very realistic goal, is it? Why set an unrealistic goal?

A: Allow me to make the goal even harder. The goal of Target Zero is to eliminate all fatal and serious injury crashes. How’s that for a big reach? Impossible? In the past when I’ve talked with people about Target Zero, I’ve described it as an aspirational goal; something we should always aim for, even if we never quite get there. And on one level that makes sense. If we instead set a goal of reducing traffic fatalities by half we’re sort of accepting that over 18,000 people will still die in crashes in the US. Yep, if you double that, you’ll be close to the 36,560 total traffic fatalities for 2018. Better to aspire to an impossible goal and achieve milestones along the way than to reach an achievable goal and think our work is done. Or so I thought.

January 5, 2020July 18, 2024

Where Your Friend Is Matters

Q: Why is it illegal to have a conversation with someone on a phone while driving, but it’s fine to have a conversation with the passenger in the seat next to you? Aren’t they both distracting? And I’m not suggesting that they should make talking to a passenger illegal.

A: Not all conversations are created equally. You already know that’s true after having to sit through listening to Uncle Leonard at Christmas dinner drone on about how he changed the propeller on his boat to a 14 inch stainless steel three-blade with a 21 inch pitch, and with the new Mercury 175 four stroke mounted on the transom he should be able to . . . Okay, I don’t remember anything after that. But I’m sure he’ll explain it again at the next family get-together.