Re: It's Okay for Drivers to be Shiftless... reasons are deeper

[Andrei Talalaevskii <andrei@felix.physics.sunysb.edu>]

Pete Kraus wrote:
> 
> Igor, from years of observing traffic I concur with your observation that
> there are frightening numbers of seemingly brain-dead drivers out there.
> Is automatic transmission to blame?  Maybe marginally, but I'd put an
> awful lot of reasons ahead of it:  inadequate training;  poor testing
> procedures; erratic enforcement; the near-universal popular notion that
> driving is a right, not a privilege.  
>........
> Permit me to make a similarly marginal counter-argument for
> automatics being safer than manuals.  For the perpetually nervous,
> less-than-fully attentive or physically impaired driver, at least automatics
> allow what attentiveness there is to be directed to the road, steering,
> traffic, etc.  I don't blame you for not buying it, but there may be as
> much truth to it as there is to automatics contributing to highway
> brain-death.

I usually enjoy reading considerate opinions of Pete. However, in this
case, I think the reasons are deeper.

One of the main reasons behind the "right rather than privilege notion"
is the lack of true alternative. People should have an option to get
from point A to point B with the reasonable cost and effort and I would
consider that more as a right than a privilege. In the absence of any
alternative transportation, driving is the only way for most places in
this country to travel even for short distance. Yes, in Europe driving
is a privilege but people are not deprived the possibility to travel due
to abundance of public transportation. Some people I know can be called
"bad drivers". They maybe perpetually nervous or inattentive. But most
of them _do_not_like_ to drive. They would certainly take a bus or a
train in many cases they drive if these alternatives were readily
accessible and reasonably priced. BTDT. Every time I go to NYC I have to
drive more than an hour one way. I do it because it is hard to adjust to
infrequent train schedule, trains are slow, dirty and expensive.
Otherwise, I would certainly take it in most cases. That would make a
trip safer, eliminate the hassle of parking in Manhattan, reduce the
pollution and allow me a couple of extra drinks in the pub. Personally,
I love driving and always drive a manual. But I do not enjoy driving in
Manhattan and in overcrowded jammed traffic of metropolitan areas
highways. The availability of alternative would greatly decrease amount
of hassle in life.

However, to make it possible, public transportation should be heavily
subsidized. And I would not mind to pay extra tax on gasoline for that.
Currently, the government is stealing money from gasoline tax, that was
initially introduced only to be spent on highway construction and
maintenance. Let the money charged for moving work to facilitate moving
and even increase the tax if necessary! I would strongly support this.
This would also adjust the number of SUV's closer to a number of people
who really need big cars. Why this doesn't happen? I think, because
ideas of taxing individual people for the sake of social benefit is by
far less popular in the US than in Europe; and I would put this
near-universal popular notion to be a partial reason of abundance of
poor drivers on the road.

Andrei