Automatic for the people

Awkward silence.

When I hear the phrase, my brain serves up a host of expletives to rain upon the speaker, in order to determine just what the fish he actually wanted. Yet all I could muster was a meek reply.

“Apa?”

“Saya kata, bila saya hantam ini dashboard,” he says slowly as he mimics smacking the dash, for the benefit of what must appear to him the retard seated beside him, “you kasi brake kuat, macam emergency, paham?”

I have such a bemused look on me that the tester takes pity and throws in a little bit of friendly advice, “Jangan lupa tekan clutch, mati enjin fail, tau?”

Thus began my driving exam and the rest of my driving life.

Looking back on the incident after all these years, I cannot but marvel that I have not either killed myself or someone else, given the exacting levels of instruction and testing I had to go through to be licensed to drive.

And according to a recent report, (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/30842-driving-tests-in-auto-cars-by-year-end) it’s not about to get any harder as the authorities gear up to allow driving exams to be taken in cars with automatic transmissions.

Some see this as a bad move, that removing the need to sit for the tests in a manual car will go on to produce poorer quality drivers. As much a manual enthusiast as I am, I don’t actually agree.

Consider the facts. Cars sold in Malaysia are overwhelmingly automatics; many people never depress a clutch pedal again in their lives after sitting for the road exams; using a manual is not rocket science and the ability to operate one well does not make you fundamentally a better driver than the next guy.

So what’s wrong with testing in automatics?

Nothing.

The problem exists even before you get to the choice of either manual or auto; it’s in the very syllabus itself so it will continue to propagate bad drivers regardless of whether testing is done with two pedals or three.

In Malaysia, it’s nigh impossible to legally own and carry a gun yet the authorities think nothing of sending hundreds out every day onto the streets in something several times more lethal and accessible. After nothing more than a few hours of instruction and a Mickey Mouse exam.

With a gun, you kill one person with each shot. Maybe. If you’re good. With a car, you can take out whole families at a time. And all it really takes is for you to be bad at it. Where’s the logic in that?

If you spend but a day observing learner drivers and driving exams, the only conclusion that you can possibly come to is that all a driver’s license means is that the carrier is qualified to drive in a car park. Barely.

Hark back to your learner days. Did anyone ever teach you how to react in the event of a skid? Were you shown how to overcome a brake lock-up? Do you know what to do if you have a blow-out? Many people spout the terms but how many actually can tell the difference between understeer and oversteer?

The answers to those questions will invariably be no, no, no, and hardly any.

All these and more are part of daily driving so why aren’t we taught the skills that could save ours and the lives of others? Most think it unlikely that they will ever go through any of these harrowing situations and for many, this stays true up until the point that it isn’t anymore and by which time it’s already too late.

Given the annual culling that occurs during the holiday exodus, the Road Transport and Road Safety Departments have so much more to do ahead of them. Driving tests in automatic, while commendable, hardly seems a priority. A bad driver won’t suddenly become a good one just because his brain is freed up slightly for not having to work a manual.

Update the syllabus, please, it’s outmoded and way overdue; and if anything be more stringent in testing learner drivers. Vet the driving instructors and please ensure that they are actually trained and qualified to instruct driving virgins. Right now, any monkey holding a valid license for a sufficient number of years automatically qualifies as an “instructor”.

We lost 66,800 people on the roads over the past decade. How many more do we need to lose before authorities move beyond the “saman, saman, dan saman lagi” mentality? Nip the problem in the bud, and the bud here is in the learning and exams. Once you let them loose, it’s too late to do much beyond lining the coffers and filling the coffins.

The move to allow tests in automatics show that the RTD’s priorities are skewed and the stated objective of “making it easier to pass” the test, laughable. The antiquated syllabus and tests are anything but hard and if people fail them, it simply means they aren’t ready yet. You don’t see them introducing calculators in primary schools just because pupils are flunking maths in their UPSR, do you?

Things change but they stay the same. Drivers aren’t going to improve. Road fatalities aren’t going to decline. Accident rates are just going to be as bad. The only difference, as far as I can see, is that automatic car sales are going to go up. And driving examiners won’t have to tell learner drivers to “tekan clutch” anymore.

If that’s all the difference there is, it surely deserves an awkward silence.