4 ms·

Sounds like other countries are over-regulated. In all of those cases you're dangerous for maybe a day while you familiarize yourself with the new vehicle and

Sounds like other countries are over-regulated. In all of those cases you're dangerous for maybe a day while you familiarize yourself with the new vehicle and most people behave very, very conservatively when driving something different than they're used to. Nobody is passing their test in a Miata then renting a box truck and saying "yes, I can totally take this hairpin just as fast as I would in a Miata". The biggest danger from people switching from small to large vehicles seems to be bumping things in tight spaces (parking lots) and with manual the danger is rolling back too much on a hill start or stalling it when trying to pull into traffic. While certainly expensive and inconvenient I don't think those sorts of accidents are cause enough danger to the public or are common enough to prohibit people from driving a manual or renting a box truck without a special license. I think people being unfamiliar with what they're driving is an edge case a lot like mechanical failure, everyone hand wrings over it, some jurisdictions take steps to try and prevent it but in the real world it's just such a tiny fraction of accidents (mostly minor single car accidents at that) compared to people being stupid that trying to prevent these edge cases is a waste of time and money. Resources are finite and they would be better spent elsewhere.

gambiting 8y ago
So I personally disagree with what you are saying. If anything, most countries are extremely under-regulated when it comes to driving - it just happens that US probably leads the way in how under-regulated it is. In most western countries it's far far far too easy to get a driving licence - I think it should be extremely difficult and it should be testing a whole range of different situations on the road, not just the operation of a vehicle + 30-60 minutes on the road. Mandatory 30-40 hours of training followed by a two practical tests in different conditions sounds like a good start. And no, driving a bigger(especially larger than 3.5 tonnes) vehicle is not just about the vehicle being physically larger and harder to park. That's why the European categories for driving such large vehicles(C and D categories) have very different theoretical tests than a regular B category for driving small(<3.5 tonne) cars. There's a whole host of laws saying where and when you can drive such a vehicle, and speed limits are different for them, regardless of what the speed limit signs say. Part of the test for C category includes safe loading of a heavy vehicle - like in your example, if you rent a box truck and put a 2 tonne pallet on one side, you're going to have a bad time. That's why the training is important.

gambiting 8y ago

So I personally disagree with what you are saying. If anything, most countries are extremely under-regulated when it comes to driving - it just happens that US probably leads the way in how under-regulated it is. In most western countries it's far far far too easy to get a driving licence - I think it should be extremely difficult and it should be testing a whole range of different situations on the road, not just the operation of a vehicle + 30-60 minutes on the road. Mandatory 30-40 hours of training followed by a two practical tests in different conditions sounds like a good start. And no, driving a bigger(especially larger than 3.5 tonnes) vehicle is not just about the vehicle being physically larger and harder to park. That's why the European categories for driving such large vehicles(C and D categories) have very different theoretical tests than a regular B category for driving small(<3.5 tonne) cars. There's a whole host of laws saying where and when you can drive such a vehicle, and speed limits are different for them, regardless of what the speed limit signs say. Part of the test for C category includes safe loading of a heavy vehicle - like in your example, if you rent a box truck and put a 2 tonne pallet on one side, you're going to have a bad time. That's why the training is important.