Scale of Stoopid

There exists an assumption of a minimum level of intelligence that drivers require in order to be ... well, drivers. Observation, however, would appear to indicate to me that this assumption may prove to be incorrect. Apart from an assumed level of intelligence, there is also an assumed level of education.

Education. Hmm, that's a sticky word in this country. But politics aside, I remember having to sit in a theory class for something like 5 hours before I got my learner's licence while some authoritative person up front told us how many seconds away we had to be from the car in front. We also learnt about giving way to the right, caution to the left; what to do at red lights (I think ... or maybe I knew that already); what different signs and markings meant; and how far away you could park from a fire hydrant.

All important stuff.

I mean, it IS in fact, important to know the theory of driving. So why on earth did they call this class a "theory class"?? So I don't get this wrong, I have in front of me a dictionary. It states:

theory / noun

• 1. one or more ideas that explain how or why something happens;
• 2. the set of general principles that a particular subject is based on;
• 3. an idea that you believe is true although you have no proof.

Attempting to apply any of these definitions to our theory class:

• 1. is definitely not true. There was no explanation of "how" or "why" we had to do things, only "what";
• 2. is probably closest, though also inaccurate. We all know that the general principle behind marking an intersection with a yellow box is so that people don't stop inside it. They still do;
• 3. is again not true. We have proof of the opposite, by observation.

So, really, I think they just call it theory because it isn't practice. Once we get our L's, we are then supposed to continue with our driver's education. And here it's all practice and no theory. Gears, clutches, accelerator, mirror, adjusting your seat, checking your lights and your wipers, actual driving. (I'll talk about learning to drive in a Kancil another day, and that many of us will continue on to drive point-and-shoot automatics.)

But still, all important stuff. Sometimes I do wonder if they still teach you how to use the indicator, but I'm pretty certain they do.

So then we're all set to drive, right? I mean, we must be. We get our licence, and sure, we're on our P's for a period of time, but the government has never-the-less certified us to commandeer a thousand kilos of mobile metal ... so we must be. The rest will come with experience.

That's where I have a problem.

You see, learning by experience is fine. But humans were not meant to stop there. My personal quote is "It's good to learn from your own mistakes, but better to learn from someone else's.". We have the ability to gather and interpret information, and then formulate conclusions, based on situations that we may never be a part of, in fact which may not have even happened in our lifetime. "Lessons of history", they say.

So, do we need to have an accident before we think that doing 80 round a blind corner just might kill us? Do we need to be flung out of the car through the front windshield before we decide that seatbelts are a good idea. The answer is no. Otherwise it's just a question of lucky or dead.

Thus is born the Scale of Stoopid (because you can't spell stupid).

How high on the Scale of Stoopid do you have to be to let your three-foot-high bundle-of-joy stand unrestrained on the middle of the back seat? It's like free-falling, only horizontal. A sudden stop and you might as well have thrown her off the balcony of your high-rise apartment unit. Do the math.

Oh, that right. We never got taught the math in our theory class, did we? Funny, because THAT's the theory that counts, literally. We wonder why people have the stupidest accidents and kill themselves. BECAUSE WE DIDN'T TEACH THEM NOT TO, nor HOW not to, nor WHY not to. We assumed that minimum level of education.

But seriously, you don't have to teach them advanced maths to help them understand, and hopefully control, the situations that they will find themselves in. Teach them to wear a seatbelt. Teach them to keep their tyres correctly pumped. Teach them to stay far enough back from the car in front. Teach them to use their indicator. Teach them to stay within the speed limit. Teach them how to overtake. (Eventually, they will drive fast. Just like eventually your teenage daughter will have sex.) Teach them how to predict the behaviour of other drivers. And teach them WHY. The correct reason is NOT because you'll get fined and put in jail if you don't.

Friction. Surfaces. Inertia. Gravity. Acceleration. Stopping distances. Wear and tear. Psychology.

Eyes Open. Mouth Shut. Brain Involved.

Important stuff.

When I was overseas I did a low-risk driving course. Note that it wasn't an "advanced driving course" that teaches you how to get out of a skid and generally useless rubbish like that. (We're talking about the average road-going driver here, not race car wannabes.) Instead, it taught you how to avoiding getting yourself into a skid in the first place. It was run by an insurance company, so I guess I know what the motivating factor was. I thought a lot of it was common sense, but still, it did cover a lot more stuff than the standard government-issue driving courses. Crash avoidance spaces. A little on predicting driver behaviour. Things like that. Though still not perfect, it was a huge improvement over the base level course and I think should be made mandatory.

So anyway, back to Malaysia. Lack of education says we didn't teach our drivers properly. However, pathetically inadequate driving courses aside, most of our drivers have achieved high school level education, and many of them did physics and advanced/additional maths, or at the very least, general science. Also, many drivers are not totally isolated from the outside world (they DO drive on public roads with other users, and possibly even read/hear/see the news occasionally), so they would be aware of the many horrendous and not-so-horrendous traffic accidents that occur.

So, many were, in fact, educated in relevant subject matter to some degree.

What does that mean, then? In this case, Scale of Stoopid wonders.

Someone once told me that stupidity is not the same as ignorance. I agree. Lack of education should never be confused with lack of intelligence. Just like you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But when lives are at risk, does it really matter how good the book is if you never read it?

Read it.