Flow Outperforms Safety Every Time

Driver education is the means by which the state assesses whether the drivers to whom it intends to extend the driving privilege are familiar with the rules and principles governing how the state believes its driver should drive. The state emphasizes safety as the primary principle governing the driving system. The state claims, ambiguously, that speed is a factor in most, if not all, collisions, and emphasizes defensive driving as a means by which to reduce speed and thus collisions. The state would have every driver hitting their brakes constantly and proceeding along the roadways at a speed rivaling a horse and buggy. Eventually, all traffic comes to a halt and nobody moves. When nobody moves and speed is maximally reduced, the theory bears fruit, and collisions are rendered impossible. The only driving deaths possible at this point are due to medical emergencies. Prior to this extremum, vehicles cluster along the roadways, creating maximum congestion. The state buys into this principle so absolutely, that it erects red lights, stop signs, and speed bumps as expeditiously as it possibly can.

What steps can be taken to reduce the number of deaths related to driving?

As it turns out, I believe that the state fails at driver education because it creates fearful, anxious, panicky drivers driving as slow as possible and constantly hitting their brakes, on the one hand, and those whose aggravation and frustration can no longer be contained who must drive “recklessly” (the state’s term) to get from point A to point B expeditiously. The state should be teaching that the real enemy of safety is congestion. When there is congestion, it increases the probability of a collision, ceteris paribus. Speed may be said to be a factor, but that statement is trivially true because any vehicles that are moving relative to each other can collide and cause a traffic fatality. The solution to congestion is to teach drivers to maximize traffic flow. Police on the roadways and traffic laws generally become superfluous and unnecessary because speed ceases to be relevant when traffic is flowing. Any barriers to flow should immediately be eliminated – red lights, stop signs, speed bumps, police – should be eliminated immediately.

Have you ever had an experience of being in car accident or have seen your friends or family members driving irresponsibly?

Yes, I have been involved in several traffic collisions. I was temporarily blinded by afternoon sunlight low on the horizon and could not see that traffic stopped for a left turn had backed up into the roadway from a turn lane ahead. Another time I made a left turn on a green light near my home because I reached the intersection first, and an oncoming vehicle intending to turn right failed to brake and slammed into my rear quarter panel and flipped my vehicle as I cleared the intersection. Another time an oncoming vehicle attempted to pass me on a two-lane road and failed to complete the pass before he reached my vehicle, causing me to swerve to avoid a head-on collision at 50 mph. I headed straight for a telephone pole at 50 mph, but only grazed it with the driver’s side quarter panel as my car went into the ditch. In all of these cases, I was the one determined to be at fault, which shows how our system is failing.

What steps can you take to be a better and safer driver as well as help others become safer on the road?

I will never stop advocating for maximizing traffic flow to be the primary principle governing the roadways rather than safety. The emphasis on safety counterintuitively creates a vicious cycle where it makes vehicles on the roadways less safe. Emphasizing flow, on the other hand, will ensure that drivers are peaceful and calm, rather than highly stressed, anxious, and fatigued. Increasing congestion increases the complexity of the driving environment, which increases the cognitive demands on a driver’s attention, and leads more often than not to inadvertent collisions, particularly when vehicles are clustered tightly together. State driver education programs emphasize defensive driving are tantamount to emphasizing fearful, anxious inattentive driving. This forces drivers to tap their brakes constantly. People die every day from what amounts to lawmaker cowardice and the failure to stand up to police and the public and tell them what really causes traffic deaths: congestion. The obvious solution is to maximize flow.