…in these here modern times:
- Driving a manual transmission. I’m not saying that the near-disappearance of the stick shift is a good thing — anything but — but it seems that most automobile owners today are quite comfortable with being steerers rather than drivers.
- Parallel parking. Other than in city streets, almost all parking spots are adjacent and not parallel. I don’t remember in which state this happened (Pennsyvania?), but a woman sued the state’s driver’s code which mandated parallel parking proficiency, saying (quite rightly) that her inability to parallel park was a burden on nobody but herself, and any inconvenience suffered because she would have to drive around looking for non-parallel parking would be hers alone. The judge agreed, and the rule was set aside. I don’t know whether that’s spread to other states.
- Reversing ability. It seems that almost every car these days comes equipped with some kind of rearview camera and a warning system which beeps when you’re about to reverse into something. I have to say that this modern geegaw is one that I heartily approve of, especially for Old Pharttes like myself for whom turning around in the seat is no longer the simple task that it once was. (My 2013 VW Tiguan doesn’t have such a thing, and I wish it did.)
Feel free to add your ideas of other unnecessary driving skills, in Comments.
Removing a lit cigarette from your crotch at 70 miles per hour is another skill lost to modern times..
A beer in one hand, your other arm around your girl, knee against the steering wheel to keep it straight going down the freeway at 80 mph.
Buying a car with bench seats and a column shift, otherwise known as the BJ special.
Manipulating the choke cable, pumping the throttle, praying to the angel mounted on the dashboard while cranking the cold engine and hoping the battery has enough juice to fire her off before she floods out again.
Having one child who just graduated high school, and another who will be getting his learner permit this week, I can say that Texas still requires parallel parking to get a driver’s license.
I got my DL in California over 30 years ago, and they had taken it off the test even then, except in San Francisco, where most of the street parking is actually still parallel.
Parking. I do not parallel park. Ever. If I can pull into a parallel spot because it’s on the end, or if there are two or three open and I can just drive in, that’s fine too. When parallel parking, I’m the guy everyone else complains about because I don’t pull far enough into the spot. I do this to leave room in front of my car so as to minimize the trauma of trying to get out of said parallel trap.
Another complaint: why do they make parking lots with spaces that require a 90 degree turn to get into the space instead of, say, a 45-degree turn? Safer, easier to get in and out of, in my cranky opinion.
My car has a back-up camera, but I’ll be da*mned if I can figure it out. too many lines on the screen to be useful to me. I’m old school: keep backing up till you hit something. And you’re right about trying to turn around and see out the back window. Spinal arthritis is part of the problem, but those d*mn headrests don’t help either.
There are skills required for a manual transmission beyond merely a quick clutch and gear change, and a big one is starting from stop while facing up on a steep slope.
In October I was doing just that and stalled the car 3 times before I realized that Fiat had installed a system that automatically set the brake in that situation and all I had to do was put it in gear, and that when I raised the clutch the fiat would release the brake.
It was actually more difficult to get used to that than just leaving me in peace to heel & toe the pedals.
I thought that was what the hand brake was for (among other things)?
Yeah, me, too. That fancy footbrake thing is just another fancy bit of machinery with bespoke sensors that will give out just as the factory ceases to support it.
As it happens my daughter got her learners permit, and today was the first day that she drove to school with me in the passenger seat.
I only had to speak emphatically once. “Brake BRAKE BRAKE” as she was turning into the parking lot.
These things happen.
More to the point, I was speaking with my mother on the phone about her learning to drive, and I mentioned that I was going to be getting a manual transmission vehicle (probably a Honda CR-V at a local salvage title lot) for her to learn to drive stick on.
My 80+ year old mother couldn’t understand why I would do this, and telling her “In case she needs to choke out her date and drive HIS car home after she throws the body in a ditch” wouldn’t go over so well.
Parallel parking should remain part of the driving examination if for no other reason in that it keeps the utterly incompetent out from behind the steering wheel leaving us only the marginally competent to deal with.
Changing a tire, replacing bulbs and replacing windshield wipers should become part of the test to obtain a driver’s license.
Left lane vigilantism needs to be corrected immediately in driving school.
The camera for backing up is very addictive. my truck has it but my wife’s car does not.
Bring back more cars and trucks with manual transmissions.
JQ
I concur on the backup camera & sensor being Very Good Things advancing in years. It’s easier on my old carcass and much, much safer for pedestrians in parking lots. Years ago my young son and I came within a whisker of being run over as someone was backing out of a parking spot. At the time I was incensed with the driver, an older man who in hind sight was probably about my current age. With age came, if not wisdom then at least understanding; I can now relate to how bad he probably felt knowing how close he’d come to hitting us.
If my experience driving in my adopted home state of Kentucky is indicative of drivers in other states, the use of turn signals or keeping right except to pass is no longer taught or used.
I saw a bumper sticker once, “Forget World Peace, visualize using your turn signal.”
Backup cameras and sensors became necessary because rear visibility is shit in most new cars.
I back up using my mirrors as I was taught, I don’t turn around. Contrast the two vehicles in the household:
2006 Jeep Liberty. No camera/sensor. Big side view mirrors mounted just below drivers line of sight. Big rear window. If you can’t see it, it ain’t there.
2015 Ford Edge. Backup sensor, no camera. Tiny back window (when I look in the rear view mirror fully a third of what I see is the cars interior). Tiny side mirrors with postage stamp sized convex mirrors. Hell when I change lanes I first have to FIND the mirror. You could hide Rosie O’Donnell behind me without the backup “you’re about to hit something!!!” warning beep.
Mark D
My insurance company totaled out my 2010 Tundra pickup when a drunk 17-year-old girl (in an F150) came down our 30 MPH street at 50, swerved into the ditch, ran up over our rock garden and, dragging several suitcase-size small boulders under her truck, hit my truck (parked in a bay 25 feet from the road) hard enough to send it 20 feet into a pine tree. It was the lowest, base version of available packages with darned near no options except a “cold weather package” and contained none of the now standard electronics crap (except the engine management computer).
I replaced it with a 2020 Tundra, again looking for the base package, but even those come with all of the electronic crap that I didn’t want. I don’t want a vehicle that thinks it’s smarter than I am, so I’ve disabled all of them that I can.
It includes a completely useless multi-function computer screen in the dash which is supposed to display the image from the back-up camera. Problem? Yeah, the damn thing is literally IMPOSSIBLE to see with any amount of ambient light (even on a cloudy day) and sunshine on it renders it a white-out.
Fortunately the truck’s got big side mirrors on it so I can see most of the area behind me, except for what’s right behind the tailgate.
To Gerry in Kentucky:
The lack of usage of turn signals is just an indication of the nation-wide shortage of blinker fluid; we apparently have the same shortage here in northwestern Wyoming. Doesn’t matter much in our small town, everyone assumes that everybody else knows where you’re going to turn anyway. The only exception are the little old ladies in ginormous pickups that go 10 miles down the road with their right-turn signal on the whole way, and then end up making a left.
Knowing how to get out of a skid appears to be a vanishing skill. I don’t know if “turn in the direction of the skid” is still taught in driving schools/classes anymore, given the number of 4WD and AWD vehicles out there now.
Growing up in Minnesnowduh I learned how to control skids while practicing on frozen lakes. My brother and I, and our friends, would lay out courses with piles of snow and go through them at faster and faster speeds until we’d lose control. You don’t do any damage spinning out on flat ice and while it was a lot of fun, it was also excellent training on how to A) Not lose control, and B) Regain control if you did.
I’ve always taken every vehicle I’ve owned (with the exception of my newest truck) out on a lake to just play with it on some clear ice to see what the limits of traction and control are. But with the advent of (initially) front-wheel drive and now the ubiquitous AWD I’m not sure that those techniques really apply anymore.
They do. There is less over or understeer needed with 4wd/awd, but steering into the slide is still valid, as is avoiding the brake and feathering the gas.
Kim, if you think rear view cameras are nice, you should see the 360 degree camera system in a Ford F-150. It makes it possible for most (won’t say any) idiots to park the truck without hitting anything.
One driving skill that’s on the list ” very few seem to have the skills to do this effectively” is knowing how to properly back a Trailer. If you need an afternoon of fun just stop by any boat ramp and watch new and sometimes old boat owners try to put thier boats in the water.
It’s a skill most Farm kids learn at 14.
The other driving skill that seems to be missing is the ability to learn that you can’t fit your 14 foot tall Box truck under a clearly marked 12 foot bridge.
When I built my fence years back, I had a side gate to the back yard (with second driveway) installed. The side gate had fenceposts set 9′ apart. The RV travel trailer I’ve purchased since then is 8′ wide. I have to back a 30′ trailer uphill through an open gate with a 1/2 foot clearance on either side while still in a turn due to the short front section that doesn’t allow me to straighten out first. The first time or two was nerve-wracking, but since then I can hit that sucker just about perfect. Yup, learned how to back up trailers on a farm as a kid. Great training.
A little more slack should be given here. Not everyone grew up as a “farm kid”. Indeed, most people didn’t. Nonetheless, my dad, who was a truck driver, taught me how to back a trailer when I first learned to drive. That man could deftly back an 18 wheeler into a slot just barely wide enough to fit.
Like Blackwing, I don’t want a vehicle that thinks it’s smarter than I am, so of all the electronic gewgaws, I turn off the annoying ones. The most egregious one for me is that goofy “lane minder”. It beeps at you if it thinks you are about to depart your lane. That’s okay if you are on the interstate or a nice wide thoroughfare, but if you’re on one of these curvy twisty country roads around here, it a major PIA, so I leave it turned off.
I for one, love backup cameras, but I still use my mirrors and turn around and look when in doubt.
I learned on a stick – well, really it was a three-on-the-tree 59 Chevy station wagon. Since the early 80’s however, I have driven company vehicles and none of them were sticks. I found out this past year that it is a bit of a perishable skill. I had to drive my son-in-law’s car and I killed it twice before I finally got going. After that, it was clear sailing. In my older years – I’m 68 – I prefer an automatic thank-you-very-much.
Basic car maintenance seems to be an unnecessary skill. e.g. Changing a tire, checking fluids, etc.
Cuz that job is for losers without online gaming.
Part of that is that everything requires resetting some chip-based sensor. It drives me crazy. I bought a Dodge pickup a couple of years ago. The *first* week I had it, I had two warning lights come on — airbag maintenance and tire pressure. I took it in to the shop and *both* were due to bad sensors. For the airbag, a sensor connector is under the seat, and if you move the seat you stand a chance of disconnecting the sensor. Fixing the tire sensor costs as much as the tires. I decided to live with the warning lights on.
As far as changing a tire, the only advice I gave my nephew when he got his first car was to change a tire while the car was sitting in his driveway and there was no pressure to get it done. The last thing he wants to do is try to figure out how lower the spare (it was a pickup) and change the tire for the first time when he gets a flat on a pot hole on the interstate in the middle of the winter with a foot of snow on the ground and semis zipping by a foot away from him.
Maybe it’s because I’ve moved south, but I’m the only person I know who has ever put on tire chains. I don’t think I’ve seen them for sale in 10 years.
Lived in Colorado for 15 years and regular weekend skier at Vail so very familiar with putting on chains in a raging snow storm at 9,000 feet then taking them off an hour later. Got to the point of being able to do it in about 5 minutes (on studded tires).
PJ O’Rourke https://www.coursehero.com/file/23461444/How-to-Drive-Fast-on-Drugs-While-Getting-Your-Wing/
The ability to stop a car with the “emergency” brake is no longer necessary because today’s cars have a “parking” brake that would be of no use if the main braking system failed.
I remember loosing the brakes on my 1969 VW Beetle (my fault) while on a freeway off-ramp at about 60 mph. Fortunately, there weren’t any cars between me and the stop light at the bottom of the ramp. I hauled back on the hand brake as hard as I could and slowed enough to make a sharp right onto the shoulder of the busy street with which the ramp connected. A modern parking brake would have been useless and I would have caused a nasty collision.
And to think that I can still back up a F350 w/30ft goose-neck trailer full of cattle, using just the side mirrors.
Eat my dust…
The backing cameras are useful. I have found it very useful to be able to drive a stick shift…travel to Europe, and you’ll find a lot of rental cars have manual transmissions. Having said that, the current crop of automatics are quite good at getting the most out of the engine.