traffic school
Sep 05 '00
According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, citizens who take Traffic Violator School (TVS) show "relatively small improvements in knowledge and no measurable improvement in driving attitudes." This is found in a DMV document by Michael Gebers, at www.dmv.ca.gov/about/ profile/rd/ resnotes/tvs.htm.
Two main issues emerge from this: 1) money, 2) safer roads. And 1 + 2 equals: TVS needs to change.
When the TVS program started, in the 1980s, its purpose was to teach traffic law and safety. You went to TVS, the court waived your fine, and the ticket disappeared from your record.
But along the way, the free ride came to an end. The convicted now pay the fine and the administrative TVS-referral fee. TVS has become an essential part of the State's economic engine. Homestudy (and Internet) courses completely unmask the pretense of safety education by stripping the system down to its moneybones.
Currently, to get the Certificate that hides the ticket, DMV requires 400 certified minutes of instruction in an 8 hour day. But this requirement is for classroom TVS. Court-approved home-study TVS advertises courses that can be completed in 2 to 4 hours.
If students leave class early, after 4 or 5 hours, and the instructor is caught by DMV, he could be fired, prosecuted for perjury, and the school itself shut down. Yet DMV accepts the Certificates from the 2-hour homestudy school.
Reasonable citizens will agree that this is bad business. And it has bearing on the second point: safe roads.
When are any of us exempt from acting as responsible citizens? Because a cop writes a bogus ticket does that allow a citizen to rob a 7-11? That is obviously criminal behavior, but few think rolling through a stop sign or running a red light is a big deal.
As a TVS instructor for nearly seven years, I've seen over 6,000 people in my classes. Only a handful appear to have been true victims of officers or despotic judges.
The majority have been speeders who willfully violated the law. Many were unaware of their rate of speed, meaning they were DWA, driving while asleep.
But being a safe driver has some connection with the laws in the vehicle code. Being a conscious driver has some correlation with survival.
Everytime we're behind the wheel, we're driving in a concrete world of life and death, which is a meaningless statement until the grief visits you or someone you love or know.
Contrary to Gebers' DMV paper, students in my classes take home the powerful message that vast oceans of unimaginable suffering can result from driving unwisely.
This is the value of TVS, and maybe in the beginning, when the fine was waived, judges thought that people would choose money over time, and our roads would be safer because people would learn the rules and want to drive wise.
But knowledge of the Vehicle Code won't change attitudes. Attitudes change when I tell students about the wreck that put me in the hospital for ten days; when a student tells how her son-in-law fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into a van parked on the roadside and killed two children in the van. Or when I tell them how an 8 year old girl rode her bike in front of a car and the driver, going 55, couldn't stop, and the next week I went to that rural intersection and saw that tall weeds and large olive trees had hidden the girl from the driver's sight. Her death was unavoidable.
But a lot of road-grief could be avoided. Know this: The faster you go the more likely you are to be a fatality if you crash. At 55 mph 1 in 10 crashes results in a fatality; at 75 it's 1 in 2. Speed is a factor in about 1/3 of all fatalities. About 47% of all fatalities occur on rural roads, two lanes, posted 55 or higher. Of those fatals, most were one-vehicle crashes and nearly 70 percent of the vehicles were going straight when the crash occurred.
Know this: most people are DWA because their head is filled with chatter about the job, money, getting a date, the divorce, the kids, and so on. That means they aren't there. That could mean that they will have a greater chance of becoming aware only when it's too late to avoid grief. So, when you drive, tell yourself stories not about the the boss, the project, etc, but about what is on the road ahead of you and all around you.
TVS is an opportunity to get these ideas across. TVS needs a shorter day to better compete with homestudy and attract more students. The program needs instructors who are aware of our mortality. And it needs a revamped and standardized curriculum focused on wise driving. TVS can provide the chance that we, and those we love, will be a little safer on the blacktop.
For more information on driving, related topics, and (if you live in California) how you can help change the TVS requirements, visit: http://trafficschool.homestead.com
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Epinions.com ID:
wisedriver
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Member: John O'Brien
Location: Northern California
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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