How good are you as a driver?

[timbo]

I recently heard about a theory of 10000 hours. It says that to master any advanced technique human needs about that number of hours of practice (this about 8 years @ 4hrs/day).
Well... I think this is very basic idea but IMO it is very close to reality.
And i think the poll can be transferred into something like how many hours of driving practise do you have?

[Belatti]

mmm... it depends, for exmple my grandma has 70 y.o. and maybe more than 20.000 hours at the wheel. Her 10 years old car seems brand new and I bet 4th and 5th gears have been used only a couple of times (by me ) She is far from mastering any advanced technique, even in her younger years. She drives so slow to the point I get nervous cause the cars behind us but she has never ever crashed. My mom always says she drives with Jesus sitting next to her...
According to statistics, I would rate my grandma higher than me

[andartop]

Please define good driver: Fast? Safe? Legal? Knowledgeable? Experienced? A combination of all the above?
I don't drive in London, but in Greece the vast majority of drivers are so bad that driving slow is actually far more dangerous, as you only increase the chances of getting involved in an accident by staying on the road for longer.
So, compared with Greek drivers in Greece, it's safe to say that anyone who knows what understeer and oversteer mean and how they're dealt with, or who bothers checking the pressure on their tires once a month, or who doesn't think they are Schumacher's clone just because they can go as fast as 200kph on a straight line, is an excellent driver. Compared to how good I'd like to be (ie as good as I am in Gran Turismo!), I 'd have to admit I' m probably still miles off..

[timbo]

Please define good driver: Fast? Safe? Legal? Knowledgeable? Experienced? A combination of all the above?

Belatti, I think this question is where to apply that 10000 hrs rule)))) To get any of this qualities you need experience. It is a process of transition of your skills from consious to unconsious (when your skills become automatic) that take that much time.
And I think that good driver is the one who gets from point A to B and not get's into truble (icluding ability to get out of the way of a trouble).

[Roland Ehnström]

andartop, the keyword, for me, is safe. Going fast is good as long as it is still safe. Driving legally is good because it is usually (though perhaps not always) the safe way to drive. Being knowledgable and experienced is good because it makes you a safer driver.

Generally speaking, using a word like "good" in a poll question is unwise, because "good" can mean so many different things to different people. "Good" in itself means nothing, it is a word that always needs to be defined. A more specific question would have been "Do you think you are a safer driver than the average driver?", etc.

[modbaraban]

I'll be honest. I'm not there yet I got a lot to learn still and even despite I'm really concentrated while driving I... erm a bit lost usually. I use my simracing car control skills on the road to drive smoother than most drivers do while being just as fast. So I'm kind of good in terms of driving the car, but when it comes to navigating myself in the city I'm like that well known Captain Slow

On the whole I quite agree with Roland Ehnström. Driving well means driving as quick as possible being perfectly safe and predictable on the road and w/o making your passengers (if any) feel sick and stirred.

[West]

I consider myself above-average, but not quite amateur racer. On the road I use my turn signal all the time and don't cut people off. I will drive faster than usual if I think people are going way too slow (i.e. under the speed limit or just braking stupidly).

I also went to Jim Hall Karting School, driven a shifter kart, driven my car on the track, as well as lots of indoor karting experience. Just recently, I cut my lap time by nearly 2 seconds at this indoor track (K1 Carlsbad, California) when the last time I went was nearly three or four years ago

But, like the saying goes, people think they drive better than the next guy

[jddh1]

I think I'm an average driver, mainly because I choose to be one.
Yes, on the race track I am very fast, but that is different from being on the road. I think on the road you have to be as close to average as possible because of the idiots that are around you. And by that I mean you have to be predictable, so that the slow guys don't get uncomfortable and the fast ones know where you are going so that they safely pass you.
I believe people that accelerate off the red light like they're going to race and then hit the brakes hard 30m later, here in Manhattan, are just bad drivers (although we all know they think they are the best).
I generally drive about 10 mph faster than the rest of the people on highways and have been pulled over only once (no ticket). So you have to know HOW to speed too. Besides, I would much rather speed on twisty back roads than highways; less cops, less cars, more exciting driving 70 mph on a 40mph road.
Still though, as long as other people are on the road driving around me, I'd rather be an average driver than a fast one. I'll go to the track for my speed fix.
So I voted Average.

[andartop]

So I think we all agree we should add "respect for other drivers" to the equation as well. As far as "legal" is concerned, it has nothing to do with safety I think. Schumacher driving a Ferrari after a good night's sleep in daylight without traffic is much safer even at 200mph than 60 year old Mrs Smith driving her Trabant that hasn't been serviced for 7 years after 6 hours of bingo on a rainy Saturday night heavy traffic even if she's doing 50 mph on a 60 mph limited road... The most difficult quality for a driver to acquire, I think, is knowledge of their own and the vehicle's limitations. If one achieves that, has some common sense and respects the other users of the road, they can always drive on the limit, thus getting from point A to point B safely and as fast as possible every time.

[xpensive]

Truer words never spoken, andartop. I commute by car on a weekly basis from my home in Sweden to the office in Oslo, Norway, why I have a pretty good concept of what you are describing.
Such as thoughtlessly entering the highway, while trusting that main traffic will make way for you, is scary no matter what speed either vehicle is carrying. Paying attention is always the key, to me anyway.

[donskar]

I'm old enough to say that I was once well above average, meaning I was fast enough for owners to give me their cars to drive in competition. I voluntarily retired after totalling three of those cars in one season.

Now I consider myself only average -- reflexes, depth perception, etc decrease with age. "There are bold drivers and old drivers, but there are no old bold drivers."

I make up for that by having a CAR that is far above average -- upgraded brakes and radically upgraded suspension, with only moderate upgrades to the engine. So perhaps we should consider the COMBINATION of your driving ability and the quality of your car.

[vyselegend]

Exiting work yesterday, I narrowly escaped being ran over by a young women with kids onboard her's Ford fiesta while I was crossing the strret at the pedestrian point (not sure how to call it in english).

The moment I jumped on the other side while looking at her lasted just a quarter of a sec or something like that, but as the brain is working in "overclocking mode" in critical situations, I had enough time to spot that, not only she wasn't looking at the road, but was obviously searching something (cellphone, lipstick...?) near the console...

As a consolation for having escaped my own death, she gave me a "sorry type" move of the hand, pursuing her way through the streets while my heartbeat was peaking like a formula one driver's on race start.

So, seeing this topic made me smile, and while I'll cleaverly avoid to tell how good a driver I am, I can tell women with kids are definitly dangerous specimens lol.

[Scuderia_Russ]

Above average and getting bettter everyday!

[jddh1]

I was crossing the strret at the pedestrian point (not sure how to call it in english).

cross walk here in the states

[roost89]

I was crossing the strret at the pedestrian point (not sure how to call it in english).

cross walk here in the states

pedestrian crossing in the UK
pretty close with pedestrian point

I'm, below average as I've only been driving for a few months. But I am getting better with every trip and pretty rapid on the brakes, the single track roads (that I use to get anywhere) with blind-crests, blind-corners and combinations of those two make need the brakes whatever speed you travel at!