A Visual Approach to Cycling Crash Data
Traffic School and Your (Not-So-Good) Driving Record
Q. Will a driving course help eliminate a poor driving record in Washington?
A: Yes, but probably not in the way that you’re hoping for. Generally, once you already have a poor driving record it’s too late for a driving course to directly impact your record. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea. Now, if you’ve done something in the last fifteen days that will result in a future damaged driving record, you might have some options, which I’ll get to in a bit.
We often have a mindset that more experience makes you better. But that’s not always true. When I was a kid, I took a year of piano lessons, and I remember learning to play exactly one song. My lessons coincided with the release of Star Wars, and the only thing I wanted out of piano lessons was to play the Star Wars theme song. In the years that followed I continued to plink away at that one song, but didn’t learn another one.
Continue reading “Traffic School and Your (Not-So-Good) Driving Record”Skip The Scary Public Service Announcements
Q: If you want to stop driving drunk, or speeding, or texting and driving, or not wearing a seatbelt, why doesn’t the government make more videos like what I watched in driver’s ed? You know, the ones with the graphic car crashes. That’ll get their attention.
A: I’ve heard variations on this question from plenty of people, and while the motivation to improve driving behavior is commendable, the approach is misguided. You might be asking yourself, “But if the approach is misguided, then why did driver’s ed classes use them and why has the government made so many traffic safety commercials with car crashes?” The short answer is, we were wrong.
Continue reading “Skip The Scary Public Service Announcements”Right-Of-Way And The Right Thing To Do
Q: At an intersection, where the flow of traffic in question does not have a stop sign, and there are several cars flowing through it, does a pedestrian have the right to step off the curb to cross as long as it does not cause an “immediate” hazard? Who has the right-of-way?
A: I’ll get to the actual answer in a moment, but I want to lead with this: Don’t hit the pedestrian. Yep, you already knew that, I know. My point here is that there is the right-of-way, and then there’s the right thing to do.
We often talk about who has the right-of-way, but that’s really a distortion of the language in our laws. The law doesn’t define who has the right-of-way; it states who must yield the right-of-way. Maybe that sounds like two different ways of saying the same thing, but there is a difference. Think of right-of-way as something floating out there in the universe that you can never take for yourself, but you’re free to give to someone else. Okay, now it sounds like I’m writing a new age self-help book. But the point still stands.
Continue reading “Right-Of-Way And The Right Thing To Do”