Why a Good German Car is Wasted on the American Housewife

Holy cow!!  

I am pretty sure that the Audi Q3 was only her second car ever. Befor that she drove a Ford T-Model which has the brake pedal on the right side!

Good one!

I guess so, it helped her to survive Brad!

Reminds me of the time I loaned my girlfriend my car. Took her about fifteen frigging minutes to wreck it. She hit a parked car and didn't even stop. Showed up at my work to return the car and wanted a ride home. Sorry, you poor unknown bastard out there.

The problem with driver's licenses over here is the country is so big, everything is far away, making a car almost a neccessity. That is, they want licenses easy to get. Folks aren't taught ANYTHING about car control, the basics about weight transfer, adhesion limits and such. When getting a pilot's license, a big part of training is how to deal with all the possible emergencies: power loss on takeoff, maximum glide range speeds, checklists for gear up landings etc.

To get a car license, teenagers pretty much learn street signs (er, what does a stop sign mean again?), and how to drive a car if nothing is going wrong, and useless stuff like how many people got DUIs last year. They are not taught that no, your car doesn't handle differently on ice, it handles exactly the same, just with vastly lower adhesion limits.

Plus, their car manufacturers tend to build cars that isolate you as much as possible from what the tires are doing, so you get as little feedback as the car can provide. You'll be floating on air with the new Cadillac! This is why people wreck going down straight, wide freeways, and why when we get a half inch of snow down here in Texas, you see a car in the ditch by every mile marker.

I believe spending just one day while in Driver's Ed with an instructor on a track, to learn the very basics of car control, would save thousands of lives a year - I wish they'd do it.

My license expired a couple of years ago, and I had to get a new one. It was as though I never had one. All you have to do is pass a simple multiple choice quiz for the written part, and drive with a government employee basically around the block as they judge you. You can do whenever as soon as you feel ready. Oh yeah, and pay taxes of course. There is no minimum amount of training - it's just when you think you'll pass, go take the written and driving test.

Usually though, folks get their license when they are sixteen. It's not a full license but a learner's permit, and they can only drive with a fully licensed driver with them, not by themselves. Most High Schools have a learner's permit class - I don't remember how long they are, but it's weeks.

There is no requirement for any kind of car control training - it's just pass this multiple choice quiz, and ride with a Motor Vehicles employee as they judge you. The employee is free to be as nice or as much of an asshole as they wish to be.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (government) said there were 32,719 traffic fatalities in 2013. www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

I can't help but wonder how many were caused by untrained drivers either giving the car the wrong input, or exceeding the adhesion limits of the tires. I wonder how many fewer there would be if they had been taught the correct input in the second before the wreck. You can't fix the morons not paying attention, but a single day of car control training would really help.

PS The moron who drove off the roof in your video can not be helped, however.

This they teach before getting a class 1 drivers license, you even have to know how air brakes work, it's on the test. Why they don't do this for cars I haven't a clue. The last time I took a class 1 test it was 10 pages I believe, a car, one or two pages front and back. What a joke. I don't drive much anymore........thank God!

I'd never be able to afford to drive a truck in Germany, I'd be flipp'en schnitzel instead I reckon.

I wouldn't want to drive a truck anywhere. You don't get to go home at night. But at least they teach you how to control a truck if you want to drive one. Same with a plane or helicopter: lots of training how to troubleshoot and minimize shite when things go wrong. But a 4,000lb SUV? Sure, get most of the questions right on this two-page quiz (where they GIVE you the answer right on the page), drive around the block and not run over anyone, give us some money, and here's the keys.

Driving a big truck here in te USA, more than once I had to deal with drivers ignorant that the trailer is wider than the towing vehicle, and the offset axle is under my trailer at freeway speeds. I just hug the fog line and let them ignorantly continue on their way.


As for foreign drivers, we see the same bs here. Eastern Bloc drivers or from Mexico want to walk up to our dispatchers and hand them their greasy eared phones so they can talk to someone to get load confirmation. We refuse to talk to them, and they have to make other arrangements....we haul super deadly concentrated inhalation hazard, military weaponry, and high value electronics and Pharmaceuticals...screw em.

Fortunately, I can retire any time I want to, and although the day is near, I probably won't stop working.