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There's a technology called a driver's licensing and examination bureaucracy. It was invented hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago (not for driving obviously

There's a technology called a driver's licensing and examination bureaucracy. It was invented hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago (not for driving obviously but the basic idea of having a state bureacracy that administers exams and tracks and validates agaainst something like a written database of who has passed them in exchange for special privileges under the law -- the Chinese had a merit exam system in ancient times for xample; medieval Europe had all kinds of licenses, guilds, and other ways individuals had to prove they were good enough to be able to do something, for bettter or worse). In other countries with more stringent licensing systems, driving poor behavior is much less. So yeah, it's an easily solvable problem that involves just being willing to better apply an ancient technology. I'm not kidding about calling this a technology -- you need writing and central state administration to carry this out, and those were pretty big advanced 10,000 years ago. We should probably have figured it out by now here in the backwards (on this specific topic) USA.

zamadatix 2y ago
Could you expand more on what you mean in place of the sarcasm/exasperation of how obvious it is? The US has drivers licenses, driver examinations for those licenses, and revocation penalties (similar to most other countries) and the problem persists so it seems there are particular changes to those you think would resolve things?
- tekla 2y ago
  Make them harder. Most require no effort at all. And make revocation easier, or mandatory after a fatal collision.
- galdosdi 2y ago
  Look up what drivers licensing is like in Japan, for example. Much tougher, in the same way AP Calculus is tougher than Remedial Algebra. Couldn't even pass on an automatic transmission until a few years ago. Or hell, just compare one US state to another. In Arkansas, I got a driver's license and didn't ever even have to prove I could parallel park. In northeastern states, that would be wild. Or christ.... even in the US, within a state, compare the requirements for a CDL to a standard class D license. It's, rightly, much tougher. Require every driver to pass to a CDL standard and accidents would go down dramatically (I'm not proposing this exact intervention, just an example). Require drivers to demonstrate greater skill when taking the examinations, and they will have to have greater skill when driving. Simple. Works everywhere but here somehow. Sarcasm is very warranted because you failed to do even cursory research and instead assumed that the US is magical, special, unique, and nowhere else could possibly be different.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    Sarcasm in discussion is never warranted here. I appreciate you explaining your particular position on what needs to change so I don't have to assume so. I disagree this approach is a silver bullet and we should ignore other technologies though I definitely agree some of those changes to the process could help overall. Japan, as you mention, has possibly the strictest drivers license requirement programs in the world but still ranks 29th in deaths per vehicle mile. The US has far from the worst driver testing and regulation but is still 4th on the same list. There are, of course, a lot of other factors and variables than just the drivers test and miles driven conflating that data but if it were really the be all end all to road safety there shouldn't be so much to still improve in Japan's case and the US shouldn't be quite so top of the list. Other country's numbers are often definitely better than the US, and I never implied it wasn't or couldn't be I just didn't want to assume which reasons you were intending to push about it, but there have to be other factors going on beyond drivers license regulation differences to explain improvements and, presumably, other new things we could do like GP was discussing. I do agree some changes you mention (like standardization) could be useful but I'm not really sure some others (like testing with a manual transmission) are helpful or relevant to road deaths. Harder does not necessarily equate to safer or vice versa. You mention Arkansas being different than northeastern states and I'll add that even a test in upstate New York vs downstate New York will be very different. Definitely a good case for standardizing what's tested how strictly more. I'd also like to see standardization across states on things like when licenses are revoked akin to the issue the sibling comment mentions around at fault deaths. In all I think this class of solutions is just one improvement of many that need to be done to solve the problem.
  - emodendroket 2y ago
    > In northeastern states, that would be wild. I got my license in Connecticut and nobody asked me to parallel park.
emodendroket 2y ago
So again your solution is, what, revoke people's licenses after the fact? Perhaps we're too reluctant to apply that but that is something that can happen to you already. But it's too late at that point. Making the licensing test harder is not going to prevent people from driving carelessly; it is an almost charmingly naive view that the problem of inattentive drivers is that they don't know better and can just be educated more. Many of the people at fault in these accidents have been driving for decades and have a level of experience far beyond what any licensing regime on the planet would have required them to have.

zamadatix 2y ago

Could you expand more on what you mean in place of the sarcasm/exasperation of how obvious it is? The US has drivers licenses, driver examinations for those licenses, and revocation penalties (similar to most other countries) and the problem persists so it seems there are particular changes to those you think would resolve things?

tekla 2y ago
Make them harder. Most require no effort at all. And make revocation easier, or mandatory after a fatal collision.
galdosdi 2y ago
Look up what drivers licensing is like in Japan, for example. Much tougher, in the same way AP Calculus is tougher than Remedial Algebra. Couldn't even pass on an automatic transmission until a few years ago. Or hell, just compare one US state to another. In Arkansas, I got a driver's license and didn't ever even have to prove I could parallel park. In northeastern states, that would be wild. Or christ.... even in the US, within a state, compare the requirements for a CDL to a standard class D license. It's, rightly, much tougher. Require every driver to pass to a CDL standard and accidents would go down dramatically (I'm not proposing this exact intervention, just an example). Require drivers to demonstrate greater skill when taking the examinations, and they will have to have greater skill when driving. Simple. Works everywhere but here somehow. Sarcasm is very warranted because you failed to do even cursory research and instead assumed that the US is magical, special, unique, and nowhere else could possibly be different.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  Sarcasm in discussion is never warranted here. I appreciate you explaining your particular position on what needs to change so I don't have to assume so. I disagree this approach is a silver bullet and we should ignore other technologies though I definitely agree some of those changes to the process could help overall. Japan, as you mention, has possibly the strictest drivers license requirement programs in the world but still ranks 29th in deaths per vehicle mile. The US has far from the worst driver testing and regulation but is still 4th on the same list. There are, of course, a lot of other factors and variables than just the drivers test and miles driven conflating that data but if it were really the be all end all to road safety there shouldn't be so much to still improve in Japan's case and the US shouldn't be quite so top of the list. Other country's numbers are often definitely better than the US, and I never implied it wasn't or couldn't be I just didn't want to assume which reasons you were intending to push about it, but there have to be other factors going on beyond drivers license regulation differences to explain improvements and, presumably, other new things we could do like GP was discussing. I do agree some changes you mention (like standardization) could be useful but I'm not really sure some others (like testing with a manual transmission) are helpful or relevant to road deaths. Harder does not necessarily equate to safer or vice versa. You mention Arkansas being different than northeastern states and I'll add that even a test in upstate New York vs downstate New York will be very different. Definitely a good case for standardizing what's tested how strictly more. I'd also like to see standardization across states on things like when licenses are revoked akin to the issue the sibling comment mentions around at fault deaths. In all I think this class of solutions is just one improvement of many that need to be done to solve the problem.
- emodendroket 2y ago
  > In northeastern states, that would be wild. I got my license in Connecticut and nobody asked me to parallel park.

emodendroket 2y ago

So again your solution is, what, revoke people's licenses after the fact? Perhaps we're too reluctant to apply that but that is something that can happen to you already. But it's too late at that point. Making the licensing test harder is not going to prevent people from driving carelessly; it is an almost charmingly naive view that the problem of inattentive drivers is that they don't know better and can just be educated more. Many of the people at fault in these accidents have been driving for decades and have a level of experience far beyond what any licensing regime on the planet would have required them to have.