[rant mode on]
Way back in 1975 when I earned my private pilot's license one of the things that struck me was that flying an airplane (at least a small single-engine one in good weather) is not any harder than driving a car. Most of the time it is easier. For sure it is (for me anyway) easier and even more relaxing than say I-495, the Washington Beltway.
That's not to say that one can take naps, but it doesn't require the stressful hypervigilance that driving at speed in heavy traffic does. But boy, the hoops I had to jump through to get that license! And every two years, a medical check and a check ride with an instructor. And if I screwed up and violated any FAA regulations chances were very good to excellent that I'd have my license at least suspended if not revoked. And if I could get insurance at all after that, the premiums would be astronomical.
So naturally it occurs to me that the world would be a better place if one had to be just as qualified at driving a car as one has to be to fly a light airplane. To my knowledge the only country that comes close to that is Germany, where it takes some work to earn, and keep, a driver's license. You have to really want and need it, and it's not cheap either.
And I can hear the whiners now - "I've been driving since 1950 and never had an accident!" That's wonderful. Then you won't have any trouble at all proving how great you are and easily passing a driver's test.
"It'll cost too much time and money!" Oh really? How much time and money does it cost to arrange an early funeral for the people the other drivers killed?
One little tidbit of data I learned along the way is that traffic law violations cause more deaths, more injuries, more economic loss from people being killed or out of work recovering from injuries, and more property damage, than all other classes of crime combined! To my knowledge that is still true.
So I do not think for one second that it would cost too much time and money. The problem now is that it doesn't cost enough to get and keep a driver's license.
And yet the population and the courts treat traffic violations as a minor annoyance because we all think we have a God-given and Constitutional right to drive a car whenever and wherever and however we want. (Actually, you don't. You have a right to travel, which is not the same thing. Walking didn't hurt our ancestors a bit.) Another hint: If you want to kill someone, do it with a car. To make it more credible, do it while drunk, that way, according to your attorney anyway, you're the victim of a disease and it's "not your fault". Chances are excellent that you'll never see the inside of a jail cell, let alone a prison. And the fine, if any, will be a joke and certainly less than the cost of the funeral for the guy you killed.
About the second time I had to knock on somebody's door and tell whoever answered that a family member was not coming home, ever, I lost any sympathy I might once have had for traffic violators. I'll admit I was a bit of a hardass for that reason. One time that person was an 18-year-old girl who answered the door. Her parents were out vacationing in Ocean City. "Sorry honey, your 15-year-old brother was DOA at the scene. Let Mom & Dad know, okay? BTW, welcome to adulthood". Okay, I wasn't near that harsh but that was the bottom line.
And some will ask, "Why don't the police enforce the traffic laws?" Well, they do as much as they are able to. At least they did where I worked. But traffic law enforcement was about 10% of what I did because I didn't have time to do any more. And yet the courtroom was packed at 9:00 AM every day there was traffic court so someone was writing a lot of tickets. But even the guys in the traffic section, who focused exclusively on traffic law enforcement, said it was like trying to bail out the ocean with a thimble.
And it's going to stay that way until the majority of the population decides that they've had enough of the killing and maiming and insists that the price of a traffic ticket rises to the point where it becomes a major financial hit instead of an irritation. One of the things Germany does (or I think they do) is base traffic fines on a person's income and they make the fines high enough that it hurts. That's terrific! If it was going to cost you 10% of your annual income to run a stop sign you'd think twice before doing it.
I could go on but you get the idea.
[rant mode off]
Way back in 1975 when I earned my private pilot's license one of the things that struck me was that flying an airplane (at least a small single-engine one in good weather) is not any harder than driving a car. Most of the time it is easier. For sure it is (for me anyway) easier and even more relaxing than say I-495, the Washington Beltway.
That's not to say that one can take naps, but it doesn't require the stressful hypervigilance that driving at speed in heavy traffic does. But boy, the hoops I had to jump through to get that license! And every two years, a medical check and a check ride with an instructor. And if I screwed up and violated any FAA regulations chances were very good to excellent that I'd have my license at least suspended if not revoked. And if I could get insurance at all after that, the premiums would be astronomical.
So naturally it occurs to me that the world would be a better place if one had to be just as qualified at driving a car as one has to be to fly a light airplane. To my knowledge the only country that comes close to that is Germany, where it takes some work to earn, and keep, a driver's license. You have to really want and need it, and it's not cheap either.
And I can hear the whiners now - "I've been driving since 1950 and never had an accident!" That's wonderful. Then you won't have any trouble at all proving how great you are and easily passing a driver's test.
"It'll cost too much time and money!" Oh really? How much time and money does it cost to arrange an early funeral for the people the other drivers killed?
One little tidbit of data I learned along the way is that traffic law violations cause more deaths, more injuries, more economic loss from people being killed or out of work recovering from injuries, and more property damage, than all other classes of crime combined! To my knowledge that is still true.
So I do not think for one second that it would cost too much time and money. The problem now is that it doesn't cost enough to get and keep a driver's license.
And yet the population and the courts treat traffic violations as a minor annoyance because we all think we have a God-given and Constitutional right to drive a car whenever and wherever and however we want. (Actually, you don't. You have a right to travel, which is not the same thing. Walking didn't hurt our ancestors a bit.) Another hint: If you want to kill someone, do it with a car. To make it more credible, do it while drunk, that way, according to your attorney anyway, you're the victim of a disease and it's "not your fault". Chances are excellent that you'll never see the inside of a jail cell, let alone a prison. And the fine, if any, will be a joke and certainly less than the cost of the funeral for the guy you killed.
About the second time I had to knock on somebody's door and tell whoever answered that a family member was not coming home, ever, I lost any sympathy I might once have had for traffic violators. I'll admit I was a bit of a hardass for that reason. One time that person was an 18-year-old girl who answered the door. Her parents were out vacationing in Ocean City. "Sorry honey, your 15-year-old brother was DOA at the scene. Let Mom & Dad know, okay? BTW, welcome to adulthood". Okay, I wasn't near that harsh but that was the bottom line.
And some will ask, "Why don't the police enforce the traffic laws?" Well, they do as much as they are able to. At least they did where I worked. But traffic law enforcement was about 10% of what I did because I didn't have time to do any more. And yet the courtroom was packed at 9:00 AM every day there was traffic court so someone was writing a lot of tickets. But even the guys in the traffic section, who focused exclusively on traffic law enforcement, said it was like trying to bail out the ocean with a thimble.
And it's going to stay that way until the majority of the population decides that they've had enough of the killing and maiming and insists that the price of a traffic ticket rises to the point where it becomes a major financial hit instead of an irritation. One of the things Germany does (or I think they do) is base traffic fines on a person's income and they make the fines high enough that it hurts. That's terrific! If it was going to cost you 10% of your annual income to run a stop sign you'd think twice before doing it.
I could go on but you get the idea.
[rant mode off]
ER'd Jan . 1993.
