Hi Hwybear,
I do understand that the individual who steered me to this site was declared one of Canada's worst drivers, #2 in fact.
I don't personally agree with that assessment and I believe it was a moronic assessment.
The reason for my disagreement is that his safety record also has to be taken into account to make a fair judgment and it was not. A clean, accident-free driving record has to count for something and thirty years of accident-free driving tells you this person has skills beyond those of the average driver.
In business, results count for far more than style. Results are rewarded. On the street they are rewarded too. No accidents means lower insurance and no payouts for at faults.
I saw nothing in that show that indicated anyone or anything was put at risk by this highly skilled driver.
Skill also has to be taken into account and it was not. Skill at being a slowpoke, a road block or a human pylon is not highly regarded in our society anywhere including the street. Slow drivers cause accidents. Fast, skilled drivers generally do not.
There is no law against acceleration. That means from zero to the speed limit, whatever it is can be achieved perfectly legally however quickly it's achieved. There is nothing unsafe about the process when conducted by a skilled driver. That means when taking off from a light such a person times the light and leaves first. Very occasionally the other driver does the same thing. The person in the curb lane can be considered at that point to be trying to prevent the other from over taking and thus is engaging in a race. Not the person in the outside lane. Regardless, if this activity does not last longer than a city block, there is very little likelihood of an accident of any sort. They are extremely rare.
Handling a vehicle well and skillfully is not a requirement of acquiring a license. As a result, most drivers who are behind the wheel are incompetent in challenging road conditions and that results in accidents. When a situation calls for putting the pedal to the floor to avoid an collision, most are afraid to do that and are often killed or kill someone else as a result. You know that. Most people have almost no skill with a steering wheel for avoiding accidents. Lots of accidents could be avoided by a mirror check, glance over shoulder and a simple lane change. It has been shown over and over in filmed road tests that when something unexpected happens right in front of the average driver, instead of changing lanes, they hit the obstruction with no attempt beyond applying the brakes to avoid collision. That is not skill.
Most people don't understand anything about the relationship between their tires, their condition, weather conditions and the road surface. Most skilled drivers have a working knowledge about how to achieve maximum traction that would leave the incompetent far behind. Most people don't even understand the dimensions of their vehicles or its ability to accelerate or how it contents can keep moving too long after they've stopped.
Experience is also a highly rewarded trait in our society and experience rewards those people with higher than average incomes with few exceptions. Practice makes perfect and driving is one of those skills that can be honed to a very high degree by a person with the aptitude. Experience teaches the ability to read traffic and conditions and predict with an exceptional degree of certainty what will happen seconds and minutes before it does. That ability keeps such drivers from having at fault or any accidents at all beyond the truly flukey. Drivers like these as rule generally have a history of speeding tickets generated by fishing holes but no accidents on their records and no record of having caused any.
Most Canadian drivers by and large are inept with respect to handling a vehicle and in that I include the police who have more than their share of at fault single vehicle accidents. In fact the police own a little piece of hell in this category. When a police officer is involved in a single vehicle accident, it is a big deal. Each officer represents a huge public investment. Their cruisers are huge investments as well. When involved in an accident, that giant investment can be completely erased along with their caseloads. The personal tragic aftermath is another public cost even if the accident was due to negligence on the part of the officer.
Attitude was isolated in the film clip. But that was a mistake. Leaving out the rest of the skills set and emotional make up took the entire segment out of context. Competitive attitude by itself does not make anyone a danger to anyone but the imaginations of the skill challenged who have no business being on the road without proper training, aptitude and interest.
In business, a competitive attitude is a highly regarded asset that garners high rewards. Business for the most part does not reward uncompetitive attitude. No one pays you for doing work slowly. The difference between survival and non-survival in business and in the natural world is speed and efficiency married to the intelligence to make both work to advantage. It is a trait that is part of our DNA - our genetic code in other words. There is no way to legislate human genetic code into something else.
Physical condition has to count for something as well. Being fit means being responsive and is the base upon which all activities requiring skill, aptitude, attention and so on are built. This driver, from his photograph, is fitter than the average driver. Much fitter. I didn't see any allowance for that. There was no mention of a glass eye, lack of arms or legs or other physical impairment. Where was any of that taken into account? I see plenty of overweight drivers who have no business operating anything beyond a treadmill. Being overweight does not cancel anyone out as a driver but it is a physical impairment even if you only account for mass in motion - momentum. It takes longer to stop heavier objects. Heavier people are physically less adroit than others and when weight approaches ponderous, that in turn is physical impairment and potential heart attack behind the wheel country.
The condition of the vehicle has to be taken into account as well. Car nuts tend to lavish money on their cars. They take pride in knowing everything there is to know about them. As such, their vehicles can do more safely than those of the average driver who may not maintain their vehicle at all or understand when catastrophic failure is immenent. We've all heard of wheels flying off of trucks. So even being a professional driver does not elevate you to the stature of a car nut in my estimation.
Finally, people like the guy who recommended me to this site tend to take serious pride in their ability to drive and drive safely. No normal person, aggressive or competitive has a death wish and none have any interest in being involved in a costly accident. People like that do not stay accident-free by being anything like the world's worst driver.
In my estimation, the manner in which the show was conducted is flawed and skewed to satisfy the comfort zone of the marginally competent. The people who have accidents in other words.
The problem for police is this: how do you discern the difference between a speedy skilled, responsible driver and a klutzy inexperienced learner who will always be a threat to him or herself and others?
You do it during the licensing process. There are lots of ways to grade skills and aptitudes that cannot be done at roadside by a cop who has to make a split second judgment that may or may not cost a person their life. The cop has to err on the side of safety. Sometimes the cop is wrong. But no one dies. On the other hand, when the cop is wrong, the person targeted should not pay a penalty for the honest error in judgment.
The fact that the government is in charge of licensing puts the responsibility squarely on their shoulders for cleaning up our roads. But they aren't doing it and I don't believe they know how.
