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Should You Teach Your L-Plater To Drive?
It’s a scary moment in any parent’s life: the moment your teenager first gets their learner’s licence and you stick the L-plates on the car so you can set off on that first rather tentative drive around the block. It happened to us last week. It wasn’t as scary as it could have been. But that may have been because we were in the automatic Ford. Behind the wheel of my husband’s manual Nissan work ute things may well be different.
Not all teenagers are the same behind the wheel when they first get there. Some are tentative and nervous and just about freak out as soon as the needle creeps over 30. Others are the reverse and go at everything like a bull at a gate, making the hapless parent in the front seat long for a set of dual controls like a professional driving coach and sit there with their hand on the handbrake just in case. (Not for them the sort of “handbrake” you find in some of the new Infiniti models: it’s operated by the driver’s foot. However, most of us probably wouldn’t put a teenager behind the wheel of a luxury vehicle for the first drive just in case.) Others take it in their stride, especially if they’ve had a go behind the wheel in fields, riverbeds or just up and down the driveway.
The question has to be asked: should parents teach their children to drive? There are pros and cons to teaching your own teenager to drive, and you have to consider both.
On the con side, if a parent has bad driving habits, these will be passed on to the next generation (see the earlier post by one of my fellow-bloggers on this topic). Driving teachers are able to pass on correct habits – well, at least they should. What’s more, when parents teach teenagers to drive, things can get emotional the way they don’t get with a driving coach. The driving coach has only seen your teenager as a young person of 16 or so. You, however, can still remember seeing your kid as a four-year-old just about whizzing onto the road on a tricycle. It cuts the other way, too, as your teenager might still be grumpy at you about some domestic issue when he/she gets behind the wheel. There’s no emotional baggage or contempt bred by familiarity with a driving coach.
Defensive driving courses are excellent, but they can backfire a little on nervous nellies. All that talk about how to get yourself out of a hairy situation can produce a sort of road paranoia, where every single other driver is perceived to be heartless monster who is out to Get You. Some of those road safety messages and stats might make a sensitive teenager too scared to get behind the wheel just in case.
On the other hand, a teenager can get a lot more practice in if parents take the opportunity to give their L-plater the wheel as often as possible. With a driving coach, there are bookings and budgets to consider. Few driving coaches offer night driving skills or long-haul driving skills, but handing your teenager the wheel for a shift while driving interstate will provide these opportunities. The other thing about teaching your teenager to drive is that it’s one of the few areas these days where parents can and do pass on skills to the next generation. The flip side of that is that a know-it-all teenager is put in the position where they are forced to realise that they don’t know it all and that the olds actually do have a few tricks up their sleeves.
So should you teach your L-plater to drive or should you leave it all up to the professionals? I say yes, teach them, although a few lessons from a professional certainly wouldn’t do any harm. Good, if anything. I’d keep the following guidelines in mind, though:
- Don’t make/let your teenager drive if either of you is in a snot.
- Don’t micromanage every single metre of the drive or every single intersection. Give guidance only when you need to. This will change as time goes by as your teenager picks up more skills.
- Do provide a variety of contexts for your teenager to drive in, rather than just handing him/her the wheel during the easy bits.
- Do stay focussed, even if your teenager appears to be a confident driver.
- Do be prepared with soothing words of encouragement for nervous drivers or a ready hand on the handbrake for the charging bulls.
- Do teach good driving habits!
The Noise about the F1 Noise
Those who like to follow the news from the motorsport world will doubtless have heard about the furore about what they won’t be hearing. Yes, folks, there have been a bunch of new regulations introduced that have seen the engines making not quite the same noise as they used to, as there’s been a rev limit put on the 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 hybrids: 15,000 instead of the 18,000 of last year.
To judge by what some commentators have been saying, you’d think that the new F1s were dead silent. Wrong. However, they do sound very different. If you remember back to your high school physics days, you might recall that the more frequently something vibrates, the higher the note it produces. The rate of revs sets up vibrations in the air, which creates sound waves. The old sort of engine produced more vibrations, so you got that higher pitched note. The new ones have a deeper tone.
Personally, I like this. One of the two things I have always disliked about F1 motor racing is the sound. The “scream” of the engine beloved of some always reminded me either of a very whiny toddler or a mosquito beside a microphone. It put my teeth on edge. Trackside at an F1 meet to me was reminiscent of something from Dante’s Inferno: all vile fumes and hideous incessant screaming noises.
The new noise, however, isn’t as hellish. Decibel-wise, it’s the same as it used to be, but the note is a lot more tolerable. The race cars sound more like aeroplanes than oversized wasps. Let’s face it: deep notes in a powerful engine are always lovely to listen to. It’s one of the things that makes a Jaguar a Jaguar (and, for those who like two wheels, it’s one of the key characteristics of Harley-Davidsons and Triumphs).
Apparently, the moves have been introduced as a way of making F1 racing slightly more eco-friendly and sustainable, as these new engines use a tad less petrol than the old ones. This is something I’m in favour of as well, as my other main objection to F1 has been the fact that it does chew through a lot of petrol just to whizz around a circular racetrack at high speed. There is only a limited amount of crude oil on the planet and while motor racing is a lot of fun, it’s good that they’re using a smaller share. Means that there’ll be a shade more for the ambulances.
The manufacturers are liking the move, with Renault and Honda (with McLaren) apparently getting back into the F1 act. Given the way that what happens on the racetrack eventually trickles down into the production cars that you and I drive to work or the school run, this is a good thing. It should mean that we’ll get better, more efficient hybrids on the roads. Eventually.
For those who haven’t heard the difference, you can hear it at this very popular video (from Melbourne, no less!). Note the lack of earmuffs in the 2014 footage.
The Australian Car Manufacturing Scene
So where to from here for those involved in the current Australian car manufacturing scene? With Ford’s manufacture of cars in Australia closing in 2016, and Holden and Toyota closing their manufacturing operations in 2017, this will leave Australia without any major car manufacturing going on.
With premium car manufacturing being so expensive to perform in Australia, the cost of physical labour in Australia is unlikely to become competitive on a global scale anytime soon. That’s not a particularly bad thing though, because I bet there are not many Australians who would want their wages to drop to the equivalent level of those in some other countries around the world.
Maybe the answer lies in the consumer. How can we ensure that we support the buying of cars designed and manufactured in Australia? Supporting Australian manufacturers and suppliers has got to be the best thing that we can do to keep Australia on its feet and going forward. Wouldn’t it be great if Australia could be a whole lot less dependent on cheap labour and goods from overseas?
There are some small scale car designers and manufacturers currently active in Australia. Has anyone heard of the Australian Kit Car, Bullet, Carbontech, Classic Revival, Daytona, Deuce Customs, Devaux, DRB, Elfin, G-Force, Kraftwerkz, Nota, Python, Roaring Forties, Skelta and Tomcar? We need to get alongside these guys and support them in what they do. I wonder if one or two of the people losing their job in the big gun names might be able to use their skills with any of these small scale car manufacturers.
Also fully producing vehicles of a different kind are Australian truck manufacturers IVECO, Mack Trucks and Paccar Inc.
Here’s to seeing some life breathed back into people who are entrepreneurs of the car scene in Australia; and for seeing life some breathed back into Holden and Ford. It’s great to see smaller scale Australian car manufacturers, and the truck manufacturers, doing so well. Take a look at some of the interesting small scalers mentioned above. All of these vehicles are available in Australia, and made by Australians:
Bullet Roadster
Devaux Coupe
Elfin
Python Amphibious Vehicle
The 30-Year Auto Technology Progress Report – Graded By Knight Rider
The other half scored some DVD versions of some 1980s TV series over the weekend, and it’s been a chance to rewatch some old favourites and to watch some of those things I wasn’t allowed to watch as a kid. Among the collection was a set of Knight Rider episodes. You know the one – the one with the very high-tech futuristic Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am called KITT driven by crime fighter Michael Knight.
It’s intriguing to think that a lot of the car designers and inventors of today – at least the ones who got to watch American TV shows – probably watched this show and similar, and were inspired by it. KITT, after all, was the high-tech car of the future and had all the gadgets and features that people dreamed of having in cars.
So, thirty years later, how is the automotive technology world doing? How close are we to having KITTs of our own?
- Full colour display screens – yes, we’ve got this one. In fact, we’ve gone one better than KITT, as today’s computer screens are touch-sensitive, something that even futuristic TV show writers hadn’t even thought of.
- Navigation. Again, one big tick in this box. OK, with today’s navigation, you get shown a map with the route and the car tells you when you have to turn, rather than having the car doing the turns just about by itself like KITT seemed to. And yes, it is possible to buy the voice of KITT for some navigation systems (try http://www.navtones.com/ for a start).
- Hands-free dialling. Another big tick here! We once all went “oooh!” when Michael Knight told KITT to dial up Devon or Dr Bonnie (or April in Series 2). When my kids watched the DVD with us, their reaction was “So what?” We do indeed have hands-free and sometimes voice-activated dialling in our car phones. KITT impressed viewers in the 1980s with the way that the people phoned communicated with Michael via a screen Skype style. We probably do have the technology to Skype while driving these days – there are a number of car computers that let you use a few online apps (some of the new Infiniti models, for example). However, a big question mark comes up as to whether this is a good idea. It’s probably more distracting than texting while driving. And we all know how bad this is.
- Turbo boost. With a press of a button, KITT could go superfast. We’re sort of getting there. Heaps of cars have different driving modes – usually Eco, Normal and Sport – and the Sport setting does help you get some extra responsive vroom. However, normal cars’ boost does not let them jump things with rocket assistance like KITT did. Imagine the headaches for traffic control if this was a standard feature. KITT did have different drive modes, too: Normal (Michael in charge), Auto Cruise (KITT drives himself), Pursuit (both of them share control, with KITT doing most of the stuff at high speed, because he/it reacts faster) and Super Pursuit (screamingly fast and speeds over 300 mph). Don’t look for Super Pursuit in any production car…
- The front scanner. On KITT, this was the cool-looking red lights on the front bumper (which are also illegal, as red is the signal meaning “this is the back of the car, guys”). This allowed KITT to see things on the road ahead. Again, we’re getting there. A lot of new cars do have sensors all over the show that do detect things in front of you or in the blind spot. A few of them – notably the new Mercedes models – also have a head-up display that identifies speed limit signs and other things of that sort, popping them up on the windscreen. But nothing quite as sophisticated as KITT, who could hear and smell into the bargain.
- Auto Collision Avoidance. KITT could dodge things and take matters into its (his?) own hands if a collision was imminent. Modern cars can’t zigzag like KITT but some of them can start applying the brakes and the like if it thinks you’re about to crash. They don’t dodge out of the way, though.
- Computer print out. Not yet. Theoretically, though, the technology exists, so it’s a possibility.
- Hydrogen gas engines that can run on anything combustible. Again, not yet. We do, however, have electric engines that just need recharging.
- Flame throwers, tear gas jets and lasers. Not on your typical production car for obvious reasons. Not even cop cars have tear gas or tasers fitted. Nor do they have microlock that uses microwaves to trigger the brakes of other cars.
- ATM machine. Dream on!
There are some rumours circulating that there’s a movie adaptation of Knight Rider coming out in the near future. Wonder what futuristic technology the new KITT will have to inspire the car designers of the future.
Level 2, 9 Help Street