Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Too many places let you drive if you do the happy path stuff right: stopping at a stop sign, changing lanes safely, etc. But the most important time of your driving is when you’re about to hit a semitruck and you need to get your car out of the way, and there is no training material for this at all. People often panic and slam the brakes and aggressively turn the wheel, which is a perfect setup for understeer and losing control of your car. They are literally getting in a situation where they are about to die and they choose to greatly increase their risk due to negligence.
It’s cheaper to run simulators than purchase cars and hire trainers. Get em in nasty situations and teach them how to get out of it. For real, if mom and dad can’t evade sinking their freeway missile into a van full of kids, they shouldn’t be able to get behind the wheel and be presented with opportunities where this might happen any time they drive.
…in this essay I will explain how my 500 hours in Burnout: Paradise makes me a superior driver…
You say that, but I’m fully convinced a good rally simulator will help a looot to control a car in adverse conditions
But I could be totally wrong, I do do a lot of real life and sim driving
In a sense, I agree that it makes sense to train people to be better technical drivers. The issue is that for avoiding accidents, your time is orders of magnitude better spent practicing planning and avoiding potential situations in the first place.
Being able to see where you need to pay extra attention, what cars to keep extra distance to, and being able to judge what a safe speed is saves far more lives than building the technical skills to get out of a situation once you’re in it.
To be fair though: at least in Norway we have an obligatory course where we drive on sleet/ice or oil to practice controlling a car in winter conditions. However, the main focus of the course is on recognising how fast you can go in different conditions, and how far of a breaking stretch you need to plan for.
