High Impact: Making The Case For Safe Driving

By Andrew Gorosko

DANBURY — There are six million auto accidents annually in the United States, where there are 186 million licensed drivers. Those six million accidents generate about three million hospital trips.

In 1998, there were 43,000 auto accident fatalities in the US. Approximately 6,300 teenagers died in those accidents.

Motor vehicle accidents in the US cause $210 billion in damage annually.

Those sobering facts set the stage for a presentation on driving safety, keyed to youths, presented by Bob Green, a driving instructor and traffic safety specialist for the Skip Barber Driving School in Lakeville. The school teaches driving safety and racing techniques at Lime Rock Park in nearby Lime Rock.

Mr Green, a New Milford native, spoke Tuesday to an audience of about 300, including many teenagers, at a Danbury Hospital medical town meeting.

“You can get killed,” the auto safety expert said of the perils of the road.

His talk on driving safety is especially timely.

During recent weeks, seven teenagers have died in area auto accidents and many others have been injured.

Dr Karen Kovacs, a hospital physician, said accidents involving teenagers stem from multiple causes.

Simply not paying attention to the road causes crashes, she said. Being distracted by cell phone conversations causes other collisions, she said. Alcohol use and drug use cause yet other accidents, she added.

Accidents are preventable, Dr Kovacs stressed.

Safer drivers make for safer roads, said Dave Wright of the Connecticut Valley Porsche Club, which sponsored Mr Green’s talk.

Mr Green speaks from experience, having wrecked his father’s auto while driving it when he was 17.

Mr Green said that “graduated” driving instruction might be required in Connecticut in several years. Under such an instructional program, a learning driver is allowed to drive in progressively more difficult driving situations, as he or she gains more experience on the road.

Mr Green suggested the creation of motivationally-based driver education programs, in which learning drivers continually refine their driving skills.

The Skip Barber Driving School has conducted such a program for licensed young drivers at Lime Rock Park, he said.

Surveys indicate that 83 percent of drivers consider themselves to be “very good” or “excellent” drivers, he said. Mr Green described that self-appraisal as a “delusion of adequacy.”

“If you think you’re a good driver, it doesn’t mean you’re a good driver. It just means you think you’re a good driver,” he said.

Mr Green described a serious crash in which he was involved in Florida. While stopped at a red traffic light, an errant motorist rammed the rear end of his vehicle.

Pulling himself out of his car, he walked back to the offending vehicle to look for evidence and found a half-unwrapped package of cigarettes, indicating that the offending driver had been fiddling with his cigarettes when the crash occurred.

“The most dangerous words in driving are ‘all of a sudden,’” Mr Green said, noting that drivers who cause accidents often explain the crashes by saying that things happened “all of a sudden.”

About 37 percent of drivers involved in crashes do not even make any evasive maneuvers, he said, noting that drivers often have less than two seconds to react to an impending crash.

Unfortunately, the other 63 percent of drivers, who realize that an accident is imminent, do react, but they do something ineffective to prevent the crash, such as braking or swerving, he said.

“Cars don’t crash. People crash them,” Mr Green said, displaying a video of some rather unusual automobile accidents in progress.

More than 90 percent of “accidents” cannot properly be called accidents, Mr Green said, noting the crashes more properly should be called “mistakes.”

Connecticut has a law covering “inattentive driving,” he noted.

“The main thing [to learn] is there’s more to learn,” he said.

“How do you not crash? How do you not get into trouble?” he asked. “You have to make yourself look at what you need to see.”

“‘Placement’ to me is being very precise with a car,” Mr Green said, noting the importance of having a vehicle respond exactly the way a driver wants it to respond.

Mr Green stressed the need to have a properly equipped vehicle in good running order with good tires and well-maintained suspension parts.

Some people are more likely than others to be involved in auto crashes, he observed.

Through his educational efforts he seeks to reduce the overall number of crashes, he said, adding that improving public awareness of driving safety through better education appears to be only true way to improve highway safety.