Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Drivers' Tests

Steven J. Franzen explains Kentucky's byzantine path to driving privileges with their 'graduated licensing' policy.
It doesn't explain the effects of full moons, dark riders or the appearances of crows.
What we need to test drivers for vision wise however, need not be acuity so much as visual comprehension. A one man shooter game forces the player to quickly discern whether a person is friend or foe but what I suggest is a test after a session to see what the testee noticed in his session. Did he notice the "r" was out on the Arby's sign? Did he notice the newsboy on the corner was selling out of date newspapers? Did he notice the patterns on the water runoff grates?
When motorists mow down pedestrians & cyclists, they frequently state their victim "came out of nowhere". They didn't. They were part of the environment the driver blissfully rolled through in a steel & glass bubble.
It's not just about reading street signs and ignoring speed limit signs & directional arrows - it's about paying attention as you navigate a great & deadly box through a community of people.

1 comment:

WestEnder said...

Ah, yes... what you're basically talking about is a vision test for dynamic visual acuity vs. static visual acuity, i.e. looking at moving things vs. looking at a chart.

It's actually been tested on elderly drivers and the results showed that the dynamic test was a better predictor of safe driving ability.

You're right and the evidence supports it.