Why Ontario Driving Sucks & How To Fix It

I love driving. But too often, the experience is deterred by some horrible driver, who’s licensed credentials I horribly doubt. Here’s a list of some things that annoy me:

• Drivers who change lanes without checking their blindspots
• Drivers merging into fast highways at ridiculously slow speeds
• Drivers not keeping with traffic speed (driving too slow)
• Tailgaters/Overly aggressive drivers
• Cellphone drivers (they just drive so slow!)
• People who forget to turn off their signals (are they bad drivers who have problems changing lanes? Or did they forget? Do I pass them or not?)
• People who don’t know how all-way stop signs work
• etc…

I could go on. The point is, some people have pretty bad habits that really makes it annoying or even dangerous to drivers around them. So how do some of these habits develop? I have a few theories.

1. Crappy drivers who go to easy locations
   According to this Toronto Star article about “Would-be drivers shopping for easy road tests“. The article drives in a good point, “They pass their test. Now they come back to Toronto after being tested in Aurora. They’re immediately eligible for the 401. Even jumping onto the 400 heading south on your way home from the test in Aurora – that’s not a parallel thing. That’s very different.”

   So they get their license, and with the testing sheet, the examiner will provide a list of issues the driver should work on to get better. That brings the second theory:

2. People don’t try to improve their skills after getting their G.
   They get an easy license then celebrate! Unfortunately, this will probably be the peak of their driving skills. Pressure’s off, allowing these “hard-earned” skills to deteriorate over time.

   Not everyone is like this. A lot of people can be good drivers if they choose to, they just don’t try and evolve these shortcuts… the bad habits over time. I mean, some of the shortcuts are good and work (common, right lane all the time? That would be hell in terms of traffic if everyone drove like this!) But more often then not, its simply not safe.

So how can we fix this? First, lets look at some statistics from the Ontario Road Safety Annual Report:

• Number of collisions in 2006: 216,247
• Number of collisions per day: 592
• Number of collisions per hour: 24

So with 8,016,875 cars on the road in Ontario, 2.7% of them were in accidents aka it’s a 2.7% fail rate. Compared to products, the rate is pretty low.

Products failing isn’t going to kill you (most of the time). Lets look at the death rate in Canada, which currently stands at 7.4 per 1000 people (0.74%), so if there’s 8 million people, 59,200 will die. Its quite ironic, that the death rate is lower then the aforementioned “fail rate”.

So how do we reduce the “fail rate”? My proposal is treat everyone like old people. “Senior citizens” are required to renew their license every two years, along with a vision test, written test, and a group driving session. The point of this is to determine when they’re not elligible to drive any longer. This would be great for people, because people usually get their licenses at the age of 20 (estimate), and if they don’t have to be retested until they’re 80? That’s 60 years of detoriating skills!

I don’t think people need to be tested every 2 years, but at least 5 years. I really think that if 5 years after getting your license, your skills still havn’t improved to a reasonable point, then you really shouldn’t be driving at all. Driving is not only a privilege, but a responsibility. So by failing your “responsibility” to drive safely, then you shouldn’t be permitted to drive anyways.

In Ontario, licenses are taken away for racing, but did you know, that “the evidence shows that the risk of having a crash is increased both for vehicles traveling slower than the average speed, and for those traveling above the average speed [source].” So all these slow and bad drivers, not keeping with the speed limit, they’re actually all causing hazards on the road! They should be held responsible too.

The 5 years license renewal would generate money for the government, as long as help insurance companies with their rates. The insurnace guys could use stats, such as number of times you failed your renewal attempts, to judge how good a driver you are, and allowing them to charge higher rates for people who fail more often (thus encouraging them to actually improve their skills).

Unfortunately, systems will never catch all the bad apples. There will always be cheaters. You know, drivers who dress up for the occasion, then afterwards strip it all away.