Quebec is one of the places in the world where obtaining a driver’s license would be the most difficult. It’s far from apparent on the road…
A strange phenomenon is happening these days: more and more cars are driving on the highway at night without their headlights or signal lights on. The power of the LED daytime running lights is such that after sunset, the motorist does not immediately notice that his headlights are off.
On the other hand, anyone who passes a vehicle at night with its lights off wonders why the “automatic” mode which activates the headlights in the dark is not more popular with motorists.
This raises a question and the answer will not suit everyone: do these ever more automated systems in cars really have a beneficial effect on road safety?
The short answer is, fortunately, yes. Generally. The longer answer is grimmer: in the case of automated traffic lights, researchers in Denmark have found that they can cause, if not properly activated after dark, a 16% increase in the risk of collision between a car and a pedestrian.
But pedestrians, when you’re driving a 2,000 kilo SUV and you urgently need to respond to a text…
Autonomous… assault tank
One of the new features on board new vehicles expected in 2023 is the improvement of driver assistance systems that some pompously call autonomous driving. We are approaching the day when cars will actually drive themselves. A big obstacle to this technology is not its effectiveness: it is that the day when the cars will take control themselves, the manufacturers will be responsible in the event of an accident, rather than the driver.
They don’t want that responsibility.
Because, in the automotive industry, we already have the answer to this insoluble ethical dilemma: in the event of a collision, if a car’s only alternative is to injure its occupants or injure pedestrians, what will it do? ? A clue: it will protect the client of its manufacturer at all costs. Under certain conditions, the autonomous car will be a tank… Literally.
This is a question that the theory test for a driving license should ask future motorists. A trick question, since the answer is that no one should have to ask.
However, because they are designed to favor their heaviest users, Quebec’s road networks often impose this type of choice. Even in the streets of neighborhoods where the most vulnerable people should feel safe.
Transports Québec, which is responsible for regional roads where cars can travel at 90 km/h despite the presence of houses or entire neighborhoods bordering these same roads, apparently refuses requests from municipalities wishing to do so. build bike paths or protected active transportation routes.
It would interfere with traffic, you understand. All these people who take a numbered secondary road to avoid freeway traffic jams do not want to be slowed down, moreover, by the local inhabitants.
Or by cyclists. Especially in winter!
Take the things over control
There is, in Quebec culture, a strange tradition for new motorists: to develop their winter driving skills, nothing beats practicing their skids in a shopping center parking lot. They don’t learn it any other way: most future drivers manage to pass their driving test in the summer, when the road is dry and clear.
It’s normal. It’s human nature to take the path of least resistance.
Anyway, with all these intelligent systems on board, the driver does not need to know how to react if his car goes into a spin. It does have an anti-skid system! He also doesn’t have to feel bad if he hits a pedestrian: his bonnet has been specially designed to hurt him less seriously.
It is 4300 people, all the same, who died in Canada in 2020 following an automobile collision. The guns killed 1,500 people. Even in the United States, cars kill more than guns (46,000 against 40,000 in 2021)!
In their advertising slogans, car companies constantly praise the increased power of their machines. There is at least one who keeps a little embarrassment and who reminds that without control, all this power is not worth much.
A better slogan would be that this power is absolutely exaggerated and that without control, it is a weapon to be pointed in all directions. If you can’t change an entire industry, or fix an unsafe road network, it’s easy enough to raise the level of driver responsibility. Let’s raise the standards imposed in exchange for a driver’s license.
According to the geographic site WorldAtlas, Quebec is one of the ten places in the world where obtaining a permit is the most difficult. Why not aim for first place?