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When I made a remark to the effect that driver’s licenses are “handed out” at age 16, an officer of the license bureau reminded me that they are not simply handed out. Written and practical tests are required, and about 20% of applicants fail on the first try. Maybe the tests have changed. It’s been many years since I’ve taken a driving test. That fact may indicate part of the problem. Pass the test once, and we’re licensed for life. There is no subsequent testing for currency in ever-changing traffic laws. There is no check to see that we’ve retained whatever minimum level of driving skill we mustered the day of our tests. Perhaps it is too much to hope for that driver’s licenses be earned the way pilot’s licenses are, although some states now have tiered licensing systems. We should consider that in Washington. Aside from specialty vehicles and commercial licenses, the license a young Washington driver gets entitles him to the same privileges enjoyed by drivers with years of experience. No wonder the accident rate is so high for young drivers. Proposals to raise the driving age miss the point. It is not so much youth that causes accidents as inexperience. Pilot applicants get “learners’ permits,” student licenses that allow them to fly only with licensed instructors. Students must meet skill and knowledge requirements before being allowed to fly alone, and then only under instructor supervision and only if at least 16. When students reach age 17 and pass the tests for Private License, the new pilots can take passengers, but they can't fly in bad weather without more training and more tests. They can’t fly at night unless they have received training for night flight. By the time neophyte pilots have licenses, they’ve practiced emergency procedures over and over. They’ve recovered from unusual attitudes their instructors have placed the airplanes in. They’ve felt near-panic when their instructors put their airplanes out of control and taught them how to bring them under control again. How many drivers know what “steering into a skid” means, beyond it being the correct answer on a test? How often does a student driver practice skid recovery on a track where he can learn and practice without endangering other drivers? How many drivers know whether they have the nerve to drive off the highway and into the trees to avoid a head-on collision? Too dangerous to practice? Yes, but so are many maneuvers practiced by aviators. Years ago, training accidents killed many more pilots than they do now. Today, pilots practice in realistic simulators. So should drivers. If pilots want to fly airplanes more complicated than the simple ones they learned in, they have to be trained in them. If they want to fly for hire, they must acquire experience and pass more tests. If they want to fly for a scheduled airline, they must gain even more experience, pass still more tests and, to command a scheduled airline flight, earn yet another license. Even then they are not through with testing. Private pilots must undergo a review with an instructor every two years. Professional pilots are retrained every year and tested at least twice a year throughout their careers. Perhaps it’s too much to ask that drivers also be licensed only in areas in which they’ve proven competency. Perhaps government could not withstand the shrieks and howls that would greet proposals to require higher levels of experience for driving at night and driving with passengers, especially driving with other teenagers as passengers, without adult supervision. We express horror at damage people sometimes do to each other with firearms, yet we cheerfully allow inadequately trained adults and unsupervised teens to kill thousands with weapons called cars. ’ve been troubled by inability to make sense of the mass of American humanity’s disproportionate reactions to both the Littleton school massacre and the Makah whale hunt. While the events are not similar, mass reaction to them is. Imagine a flock of sheep grazing placidly with no disturbance or distraction. They are in a loose association, most more or less in one place, heads down, going about the business of making a living. Although there are individuals and small groups apart from the body of the flock, perhaps going different directions as they graze, they are nonetheless a cohesive unit of beings. Their general direction is the same for all in spite of the flock’s fragmentation. Minor squabbles erupt occasionally. One sheep bumps another and the aggrieved party butts the offender. The dispute plays itself out with none but those closest being aware of it. Occasionally some unfamiliar thing——a noise, a smell, a movement——spooks one or a few sheep and their startled reaction infects the entire flock in an instant. The sheep act as one panicked being, bunching tightly and running blindly in whatever direction they happen to be pointed. No individual sheep has made a conscious decision to stampede, but they all do it without consideration of whether they are reacting to a real threat to their collective well being. The same thing happens to people in crowded theaters. The smell of smoke or a flicker of light induces panic and people crush each other to death in the stampede for the exits. All could have walked out of the theater in a couple of minutes if they had acted rationally. My imaginary sheep, the crowd in the theater, and the American people in their extreme over-reaction to the deaths of 13 people and one whale have something in common: hys·ter·i·a n. 1. A neurosis characterized by...mental and behavioral aberrations. 2. Excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic. The urge to find ways to
prevent crimes such as the one in Littleton is rational. What is not rational
is the headlong rush to do something, to do anything, without considering
whether the proposed actions are those that might have some bearing on
the problem to be solved.
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