This is far more believable than the claim that using the far hand will force you to turn 90 degrees inside the car and scan fully before getting out. It might serve as a good habit/reminder, but it's neither necessary nor sufficient to create this behavior.
I think much of the US is unaware of how seriously some other countries take driver's training. Our standards are appallingly low.
Letting 16 year olds drive is probably part of the problem. In more bicycle-friendly countries, kids start drinking before they start driving. Cycling to and from parties until they're at least 18. Hell, want to go anywhere at all? Cycle.
Also getting taught by amateurs, that just isn't a thing in the Netherlands. You learn to drive in a modified car (extra set of brakes, extra mirrors) with a qualified instructor next to you.
When I was taking mandatory driver's ed at 16 in the US (Boston area), the school's fleet was indeed equipped with foot brakes in the passenger seat. I'd wager a guess that all of the cars that you see with a "beginner driver" sign on the roof are like that. However, for the license test the only requirement was to have a hand brake between the front seats.
I have come to believe that we give out driver's licenses way too easily in the US. One easy, but sadly no longer practical, solution would be to require that the road test is taken on a manual. Driving stick from the beginning gave me so much more awareness and reflexes that have saved me from accidents more than once.
One easy [..] solution would be to require that the road test is taken on a manual.
Here in NL, we do distinguish between them: if you learn to drive (and do the exam) in a car with automatic shift, you get an annotation on your driver's license saying you're not allowed to drive a manual-shift car.
It varies by state, but often you can get some license without professional instruction. Many states have a learner's permit (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learner%27s_permit#United_St...) that allows any over 25 (or even 21) year old with a driver's license to teach you to drive in an unmodified car.
A step up is a provisional license that may (depending on state) allow you to drive certain routes (typically to school or work and back, but also sometimes to do essential shopping) unaccompanied.
That makes some sense in areas where traffic is light and distances large.
I think that, in some states, you even can get a
provisional license without ever having driven a car (you may have had a learner's permit for a certain period, but they don't check whether you actually used it), but of course, that's extremely unlikely to happen.
I applied for a permit (purely knowledge/eyesight test), and that allows you to drive any normal vehicle (class-A) as long as there is someone in the passenger seat over 25/at least 5 years possessing a driver's license (or something like that).
I went home and took the family car out on public streets with my Dad.
6 months later, I applied for my license. Simple 15 minute public roads driving test in the same family car.
Driving for the first time was scary -- one of the first streets I went down was one lane with cars parked on each side. Doing that without being used to the car's physical space (it was a large Suburban) is a little crazy.
That's quite a bit different from the Dutch situation. I've paid thousands of euros for lessons, with a professional instructor, teaching me from working the pedals and the clutch all the way through navigating complex double merges on the motorway, sending me from the motorway straight into a low-speed zone, and through every imaginable traffic situation. Before you get lessons in the car, you first need to get your theory exam (which was easy for me, but can apparently be very hard for less academically inclined people), and I think I failed the practical exam about 5 times (which is excessive; some do manage to pass the first time, though it's not unusual to fail).
I felt fairly well prepared for Amsterdam traffic, but still managed to send my car into a spin on a slippery onramp that I underestimated.
My experience as a teenager and parent is similar to the GP - and my US license is valid in the Netherlands.
Note that we have the added complication that we live in areas with snow, and thus are driving on icy/snowpacked roads for a good portion of the year.
I wondered if it would be cheaper (or more fun!) for dutch residents to take a trip to the US, get a valid drivers license, and bring that back to Europe rather than pay directly for a license there.
I'm not sure if it's still true, but a few decades ago, the easiest way to get a Dutch license was on Saba, one of the Dutch Antilles. Apparently, if you managed to drive around the central square on the island without any major accidents, you got your license, and it was perfectly valid as a Dutch driver's license.
I knew one guy who got his license there, and he didn't dare to drive in continental Netherland. He did have a Dutch motor bike license, but he didn't feel qualified to drive a car in real traffic.
It is not mandatory in every state, I believe. However, even when not required, it is very common to use professional driving instructors with modified cars.
This is very uncommon in the United States. Probably 99% of driver training in the US is driving a family car with mom or dad in the passenger seat. Most people get very little and often no professional instruction.
Certainly, when receiving professional instruction, the modified car with at least an extra brake is typical. It's just that most people never get much of this instruction.
If you are under eighteen, states requiring driver's education from a professional driving school (with behind-the-wheel instruction): CA, DL, HI, ID, IA, KS, LA, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MT, NH, NJ, NM (waiver available), NY, NC, OH, PA, SC, TX, UT, VT, WA, WI,
Require the course, but not professional, behind-the-wheel instruction: CT, GA, FL, IL, KY, ME, MO, ND, RI, VA,
Professional instruction not required: AL, AK, AR, CO, IN, NE, NV, OK, OR, SD, TN, WV, WY, DC
So, about half of the country is required to have professional, in-car instruction. Quite common.
Still a huge number of people get no training and even in states that require training, it seems pretty minimal. 6 hours of driving instruction in my current state (WA) doesn't seem like a lot.
The downside of that is that getting a license costs a lot more - think in the range of €1500 - €2500. But that too helps with having people take it seriously, and losing your license due to e.g. excessive speeding to hurt more.
And it's not as crucial to have one here, I only got my license at 35 (and now that I have kids, I'm really happy with it). That's not completely normal of course, but it'd be much harder to do in the US.
Plenty of city dwellers don't get their license until they have kids. I did that too. My brother doesn't have kids but only got his license when he was about 40.
Agreed. I was definitely taught to always shoulder check before turning right, and I can't remember whether I was explicitly taught or not, but it just seems like common sense to check if anything is coming before swinging your door open. That said, clearly it's not, so that really needs to be taught better as well. (And of course the third one that they do far better than us in Holland, and in Europe in general, is lane use.)
Each of these is clearly a matter of poor education. I still remember my driving test having three increasingly ridiculous questions about how it's never ok to go even 1kph over the speed limit, but no emphasis whatsoever on these issues. I hope it's changed since then, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
Is it that hard to believe? The human brain is not a perfect system. We operate on autopilot when performing menial tasks. Exiting a car is absolutely a zero-effort task that is habitually performed without any thought involved. Reaching with the opposite hand naturally turns your head far enough that you're looking at your blind spot - or at least 80% of the head turn required. The point is you can consciously forget to check, but by opening your door this way you will hopefully - and quite likely - trigger your brain into remembering that you need to check.
Time and time again on Hacker News, intelligent people can't seem to understand that the average citizen is not a Hacker News visitor. You can try to rationalize that every driver must be capable of being consciously aware of what they are doing every single time they open their car door. You can believe that this behaviour should be testable and that we should revoke licenses from the 20-70% of drivers who would fail such a test. This is simply not the reality. Introducing a - ugh I can't think of a word related to "mnemonic", aka. a brain training exercise - that will hopefully result in more people opening their car doors safely, can only be a benefit to all.
> Reaching with the opposite hand naturally turns your head far enough that you're looking at your blind spot - or at least 80% of the head turn required.
Only if you have so little shoulder mobility that you're unable to move your arm across your body while retaining your upper body position. I can reach across my body to open the door with no upper body movement. If I reach casually and let my body move loosely, I maybe move 10 or 15 degrees.
You might be thinking, "Oh, you're just saying that because it's a motion you're not used to and as a result you're overthinking it and holding yourself unnaturally still." But it's not an uncommon or unnatural motion for me. I already do this literally every time I open the car door. I always open the door with my right (far) hand because I don't have a left hand. And I don't automatically turn 90 degrees when I open the door, or 80 degrees, or even 45 degrees.
I'm not opposed to some "mnemonics" like this. I am opposed to treating them like they fix the core issues. It's really appealing to pick some tiny factor like this and say "here's the thing we're missing", but the thing we're missing is the careful culture that the Dutch have around driving. Opening the door with your right hand won't end dooring in the US any more than drinking red wine like the French will cure heart disease. We diminish the conversation when we push easy changes as silver bullets.
> Time and time again on Hacker News, intelligent people can't seem to understand that the average citizen is not a Hacker News visitor.
This is out of place and pointless.
> You can try to rationalize that every driver must be capable of being consciously aware of what they are doing every single time they open their car door. You can believe that this behaviour should be testable and that we should revoke licenses from the 20-70% of drivers who would fail such a test.
I definitely didn't say anything remotely like that.
>> Time and time again on Hacker News, intelligent people can't seem to understand that the average citizen is not a Hacker News visitor.
> This is out of place and pointless.
The typical HN visitor is going to have, on average, a brain that operates differently than the average citizen. Not necessarily "better", just different. It's not supposed to be an ego boost for us, or an insult to the general population; it's just fact. It is unrealistic to expect that every person is going to be hyper-aware of their surroundings and behaviour at all times.
Ten years ago I thought that "average people" were missing basic common sense, that made them incompetent in their decision processes. With every year that goes by, I've come to realize that these people are completely normal. They are neither unintelligent nor stupid, or careless, or any other derogatory term. If anything I now resent my analytical thought process, and wish I could adopt a different set of mental priorities. Where's the off switch? ;)
I think much of the US is unaware of how seriously some other countries take driver's training. Our standards are appallingly low.