I'll never forget a great line from the 1980s Knight Rider television series, where KITT (the speaking car) says to Michael Knight, played by David Hasselhoff, "As you wish Mr Knight. But since I sense we are in a slightly irritable mood caused by fatigue, may I suggest you put the car in auto cruise mode for safety's sake."
Most drivers throughout the world, and in particular New Zealanders, are barely adequate at doing a good job of driving their cars and think it's okay to be irritable, tense, tired, grumpy distracted and a myriad of other things while driving at speed.
Now that I'm in a quoting mode, one of the greatest open wheel racers back in day, Al Unser, said, "You may drive the freeway daily at top speeds with confidence and skill. But that doesn't qualify you as a race driver. Put an ordinary driver in a race car and he'd probably crash before he got out of the pit area."
I think that quote should be etched into the front windscreen of every car before it's allowed to leave the factory. Just because most of us can start a car, get it out of the driveway and point it in the general direction of where we want to go without causing too much grief, it doesn't mean we have the skill sets of a professional.
Driving is probably the most difficult thing we as humans have to do. I've heard people say driving's not rocket science. I know that, it's a lot bloody harder. A rocket is just a controlled explosion - you hope it's been built properly then you stand well back and light the touch paper, metaphorically speaking.
Everything is done in a controlled environment with everyone concentrating on exactly what is happening. According to research, driving entails about 1500 sub skills and in covering a kilometre drivers are exposed to around 1250 pieces of information.
What do I see a vast number of people doing? Bloody texting, eating, reading, sorting children out in the back seat, groping on the floor for something and dozens of other distracting things, which have nothing to do with the paramount thing at hand - driving the car.
Most people can't juggle three balls standing still, so how do you think you can do all the above at 100km/h?
A fair sized chunk of the problem with a lot of motorists thinking they're rather good at driving is the perceptive few who are aware of what's going on are ready to react when the numpties make a mistake.
A lot of accident reports these days mention there's no sign of alcohol or drugs in the driver. It's almost as if the fatality was just plain bad luck rather than bad decision making, distractions, driving beyond the skill set, running a red light or breaking the speed limit.
So what is it that makes us think we're immortal in a car? The same old thing man has suffered from for centuries, arrogance and an over-inflated opinion of one's abilities.
