Calif Bill wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
oups.com...
wrote:
Yeah, our drivers education is so effective we never have any bad
drivers on the road ;-)
Yeah, but can you imagine what the roads would be like if there were
*no* licensing laws requiring basic familiarity with rules and a test
for basic competency? Whenever you get a lot of people together, with
opposing directions of travel and/or priorities in a small area "no
rules, no minimum exposure to any rules, and no qualifications of any
kind" is a recipe for a disaster.
Seeing the lack of good drivers in California, and while traveling through
Washington from Sumas to Oregon I noticed a lack also, I find that the
driving is not much worse in Peru and Ecuador where lines on the street are
just an advisory. Just returning from an 8000 mile trip to Alaska, and for
the whole trip only saw 4 accidents. 1 in Alaska, where a camper van went
off the side of the road and over corrected, and rolled near Coopers Landing
on the Kenai and the same thing coming up from the WAC Bennett dam in BC,
but a VW Jetta, I saw 2 accidents yesterday on I-5 in Oregon. Seems as if
lots of cars in a confined area induces accidents. Same with boats.
Education may help, at least you can rap the head of the blow boater who
claims to have the right of way over power driven boats with the manual. If
he survives the right of way battle with a tanker.
There's a big difference between automobile and boat driving to take
into consideration: most people, before they take the wheel of a car,
have fifteen or sixteen years' experience watching it done, and so
probably know most of the basics even before being formally trained in
advance of getting a license. (Despite this, I still support mandatory
education and licensing for car drivers.) But this is very different
with many boaters, who can often buy and start driving their first boat
with little or no experience or knowledge. That's one of the reasons I
support requiring people to show that they at least have been exposed
to the basics.
richforman