The Evolution of The Driver

If you take a very wide piece of paper, and draw a line across it long enough to represent the period of time that mankind has been on the planet, that line would stretch for miles. Accepting that for what it represents, if you then tried to highlight a section of the line to represent the amount of time mankind has been driving motorised vehicles you couldn’t get a pen nib thin enough to do it.

As animals, we human beings have evolved to become very adaptable, and over the last century and a bit, that adaptation has enabled us to drive motor vehicles. What is remarkable, when you look at how we got here, you will see the transition took a only few generations to complete.

How Speed was Limited by Horsepower

Beginning with the horse, the horse and cart, then the fast battle chariot and the express stage coach, our speed over the ground for centuries was always limited by the one common denominator; the horse. What is apparent is that we had time enough to adapt to the change from travelling by foot to horse back then.

Progress in the development of technology was at a pace everyone could keep up with. Even when the first motorcar appeared, the maximum capable speed of the machine was hardly breathtaking, and in fact slower than the horse.

Measuring the Advancement in Automotive Technology

Talking of drawing lines representing evolution, if we use another sheet of paper, and instead of a time line we draw upon it a graph to show the evolution of the motorcar in terms of technological advancement onward from the late 1800’s, what would the results look like?

Just ponder a moment, whilst viewing that drastically accelerating upward curve on the graph, that here in the UK the first road driving test for driver’s of motor vehicles was introduced in 1935. This assessment system was only brought about as a result of the horrendous number of road accidents that had begun to occur.

Up until 1935, if you wanted to drive a motor vehicle on the road, all you had to do was get in the driver’s seat and do it. Therefore, is it any wonder there was such a rate of incident, with everyone seemingly left to make it up as they went along? Of course, it wasn’t until the driving test came upon the scene was there any notion about completing formal driving lessons.

When The Driving Test Was Introduced

In 1934, the year before testing, 7,343 people had by that time been killed on British roads. That number dropped by over a thousand after the requirement to take a driving test was introduced. However, talking again of evolution, and in terms of comparison, as automotive technology has progressed since the time of the first driving test, has our driver training kept pace with the progression in vehicle performance?

In 1935 it was almost possible to count the number of cars being made that were capable exceeding 100mph on the fingers of one hand. Nowadays, it is possible to count upon the same available digits the number of cars being made that can’t. So, what has happened to our level of driver training over the same period?

ABS, EPS and Other Gizmo’s and Gadgets

The trouble is, whilst the human animal is quite adaptable, it is also arrogant, conceited and egotistical. We seem to think that whilst technology advances, and cars get ever more powerful and faster, we can evolve with them at the same pace of progression quite naturally. That could be a good reason why there is a necessity to fit ABS, EPS and all the other gizmo’s and gadgets to stop us making an early voyage into the next world.

To be quite clinical about this, those so–called safety aids are actually there to compensate for our own inadequacies as drivers, because if we were as highly skilled as our machines were fast and powerful, we wouldn’t actually need them.

As Long as What we do Feels Comfortable we Regard it as Safe

Human beings are also creatures of habit, and as habit forms it becomes comfortable, just like a favourite pair of slippers. Yes, we feel comfortable with habit. After all, habit is so much part of our lives.

But have you thought how habit still feels comfortable, even if what we are doing is actually and potentially harmful? As long as what we do doesn’t cause us any pain, we will keep with the habit, for as long as we are getting away with it.

It’s true that even the worst driver’s can feel comfortable doing what they do, because that is their habit. Habit is often confused with experience, and long–serving drivers will mistakenly claim that have gained additional skills through the passing of time. But, the experience they speak of is little more than evolution of habit with which they have become ever more steadily comfortable.

The Driver of Today is Often Outclassed by The Car

Very occasionally, when a high performance car is acquired to replace a lesser vehicle, a driver will admit they have become outclassed by it, but it isn’t admitted to often.

People will be quite happy to jump from a production hatchback run–around into a thoroughbred machine, taking their standard and inadequate DSA driving test skills with them. There is even a belief the high performance machine will inspire high performance driving skills, and not that high performance driving skills will be demanded by the high performance machine.

The point that is often completely missed is that human beings cannot raise their knowledge–based performance without the input of information to develop their performance. Getting that input of information, unfortunately enough, actually means getting some training. Like a computer, the stuff you get out is only as good as the stuff that was put in.

No one can wake up one morning and decide they are, from that moment on, going to be a more highly skilled and more highly trained driver, because without the knowledge to work with, where are those additional and higher grade techniques going to come from?

Some People Are Natural Drivers

It is true that some people are natural drivers, and it is equally true that some have the ability to become very effective drivers, but we are talking potential here. Full potential can only be realised if training is used so as to develop and to extract that potential.

So many drivers are locked in a world within which their current level of development has them pinned. However, because every one of us will only know what we know, we sure as hell don’t know what we don’t know. However, when we take the plunge and investigate the prospect of being able to realise what we currently don’t know, we can then discover there is actually a whole different world out there on the road.

So, as the nation holds its breath in anticipation of the arrival of ever faster and more powerful cars, such as the Nissan GT–R for example, would it not be great to discover the world is actually a sphere, leaving all the others behind who are still working on the basis that it is flat? There are discoveries to be made through advanced driver training, and they are actually just as profound.

First Published in Total Nissan® in March 2009

About the Above Article

The above article, in edited form, was published in the Spring 2009 edition of Total Nissan magazine, a publication produced by Almond Publishing. Within the printed version, it appears Almond Publishing found it necessary to insert a line that made reference to the premier footballer, Ronaldo, crashing a Ferrari in a London tunnel. Ride Drive would like to make it clear this line of text was not supplied to Almond Publishing within the draft submission, and as well as being inaccurate, it was also used without the prior knowledge of Ride Drive Limited.

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