Author: DOUG DAHL

Q: Wasn’t it like ten years ago that Elon Musk promised we’d have fully autonomous cars in five years? When am I going to get a car that can drive me around?

A: It’s easy to poke fun at Elon Musk, since he’s the loudest person to be wrong about autonomous cars, but he’s not alone. Along with Tesla, carmakers including Mercedes, Volvo, Nissan, Toyota, GM, Honda, Hyundai, and Google all predicted that we’d have full self-driving cars by 2020. In 2016 Anthony Foxx, US Transportation Secretary at the time, predicted that by 2021 we’d no longer need a driver license because we’d just summon an automated car service. Musk went bigger (of course), saying in 2019 that “It’s financially insane to buy anything other than a Tesla,” and following up by saying that “next year for sure” there would be over a million fully self-driving Teslas on the road.

Continue reading “Where’s My Robot Car?”

Q: Traffic on the freeway has increased over the years and now exiting traffic sometimes comes to a stop in the traffic lanes of the freeway. It’s really scary to have to come to a stop and see traffic piling up behind me. I almost feel like staying in the left lane and taking the next exit. What are your suggestions when encountering this situation?

A: One of the drawbacks of living in a place where lots of people want to be is that we end up with lots of people. Long-time Washington residents can remember when rush hour was really only an hour and you almost had to leave the state to find a legitimate traffic jam. But we couldn’t keep it to ourselves and now the infrastructure can’t maintain pace with the popularity of Washington.

Continue reading “Navigating Backed Up Off-Ramps”

Q: There is a commercial on TV featuring a deaf driver. Are deaf people allowed to drive, or are they restricted because of their hearing loss?

A: Perhaps you saw the car commercial featuring Kris Martin, a six-time National Kart Champion, NASCAR, and Le Mans professional race car driver who is deaf. If so, I hope you found him as inspirational as I did. But being an inspiration isn’t one of the qualifications for a driver license. That’s okay for Kris though, and for many other deaf people, because being deaf isn’t a disqualifier.

Continue reading “The Myth of the Dangerous Deaf Driver”

Q: I’ve always wondered about the five-car rule when you are driving the speed limit. I pull over as I don’t like being in front of aggressive drivers, but is that illegal too, when you aren’t technically a slow-moving vehicle?

A: Sometimes a question, instead of prompting an answer, generates more questions. It’s like asking, “What is the meaning of life? Are we alone in the universe? Is bowling a game or a sport?”

Before we get to more questions or answers, let’s do a quick review of the “five-car rule.” The law says that on a two-lane highway where passing is unsafe, a slow-moving vehicle shall turn off the roadway at a safe location if there are five or more vehicle in a line behind them. The law then defines a slow-moving vehicle as one traveling at a speed slower than “the normal flow of traffic at the particular time and place.”

Continue reading “What About (Not So) Slow-Moving Vehicles?”

Q: Can you please write about signaling at traffic circles? I rarely see anyone signal to make a right or left turn. It causes confusion when trying to enter a traffic circle because one has to almost guess whether someone coming from the other side of the circle is going to go straight or make a left turn.

A: Communication is such a big part of driving and yet, we have so few tools to let other drivers know what we’re doing. We’ve got brake lights, turn signals, and in an emergency, the horn. Those are the official signals, at least. Then there’s the wave at the four-way stop when everyone’s trying to remember who goes next, and various unsanctioned hand gestures. Those other signals might help you understand the emotional state of the driver, but they don’t help much at clarifying their driving intentions.

Continue reading “Left Turns in a Roundabout?”

Q: What should I do if my car starts to skid on ice or snow?

A: Many years ago, I learned a valuable principle from a defensive tactics instructor. He said, “If you don’t want to get hit, don’t be there.” His advice was intended for physical confrontations, but metaphorically it works in a lot of other situations. Maybe you already see where I’m going with this.

It’s easy to mistake knowledge for skill, and I’m concerned that if I answer this question the way I think you want me to, that I’ll perpetuate that mistake, so let’s shift the focus from hazard recovery to hazard avoidance. Skidding is an indicator that your driving has exceeded the limitations of the road conditions, so instead of practicing how to recover from a skid, we should practice how to drive within the limits of the road conditions and prevent the skid.

Continue reading “Getting Good at Not Skidding”

Q: When driving on a four-lane road through a neighborhood, is it safer to drive in the left lane and risk a head-on collision, or the right with less space to react to people or objects unexpectedly entering the roadway?

A: There’s that scene in Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo is trying to evade several TIE Fighters by going into an asteroid field. C-3PO warns him, “Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to one.” Han replies, “Never tell me the odds.”

Continue reading “Picking the Right Lane”