The One-Question International Driving Test

[BeBop]

1. Assume you are driving 100kph/60mph on a roadway. A pedestrian steps in front of your car, 30 meters/100 feet ahead of you. Do you:

a. apply brakes

b. sound horn

c. neither a nor b

I suspect most Americans would choose 'a', while a greater portion of Italians would opt for 'b'. In Burkina or Benin, 'c' might be the favored answer. I offer this up as an unscientific anecdote from the lest few weeks of my life.

My belief is that there is no correct answer. What's important is that drivers behave predictably and in accordance with local custom. It's easy to call the West Africans calloused because they do nothing; my impression, however, if that the haven't been raised in a society where people are assumed to be stupid and/or unable to protect themselves. They would probably assume that the pedestrian had timed things in a manner such as to be removed from harm's way without driver action. Sounds fair enough to me.

[tonym]

Drop a cog, throttle on, main beam and scare the bejesus out of them. As you pass (closely) foot off gas and listen to V8 pop.

Easy way to get pleasure from the daily driving woes of numpties in and out of cars.

[Peter Johnson]

Drop a cog, throttle on, main beam and scare the bejesus out of them. As you pass (closely) foot off gas and listen to V8 pop.

Easy way to get pleasure from the daily driving woes of numpties in and out of cars.

The TVR is good for that, no doubt!

[Big Al]

d. Floor it!

[tonym]

Oh God yes.

[Brownian Motion]

If you're unsure what to do, you're going too fast.

[Big Wheel]

What's important is that drivers behave predictably and in accordance with local custom.

Amen to that. I was in Indonesia about a month ago and the drivers there are, by American standards, completely insane. It's perfectly normal to pass people with oncoming traffic at distances that would freak out an American. (Almost every road is two-lane, by the way.) But since everyone knows that people are passing with impunity, if it turns out there's not enough room to pass, the passing driver KNOWS that someone will let him back in to his own lane so that he isn't turned into a puddle of goo on the road by an oncoming 18-wheeler. In the States the driver behind a passing vehicle might be much more hesitant to change his own speed to accomodate him in case the pass needs to be aborted--or not be paying attention at all to the passing driver.