How Do We Define A Bad Driver?

I believe what constitutes "good" and "bad" driving behaviours is a constant back-and-forth shift on a spectrum based on many variables.

"Good" drivers have some bad habits, and "bad" drivers may demonstrate good behaviours.

Wherever the line is drawn, there are going to be drivers who disagree.

I also think that defining a "bad" driver simply by their demerit points and the number of infraction tickets they have received is not going to be enough.

There are "bad" drivers out there who have none.

There’s objective and subjective labeling of bad drivers.

I prefer objective. For objective, ICBC has the data already and they’re fully aware of the correlation between violation tickets and other actions, which don’t necessarily result in tickets, with at fault collisions.

The DPP system needs a thorough overhaul so that points are assigned to correlate with risk and likelihood of involvement in at fault collisions. This way a proper determination can be made by both the public at large and ICBC, and those drivers can be targeted and removed as necessary. Why is it reasonable, as is the case today, that driving over freshly painted roadway lines results in the same two penalty points as running a red light which we all know is an offense which poses far greater risk?

Far better to assign a fine to the former offense and penalty points or a combination fine / points for the latter.

I believe that the answer can be found through TESTING. Think of the 20 most common causes of accidents. Now write a 10-question test chosen randomly that address 10 of those 20 issues. Now make it hard to pass, like 7 or 8 correct. After all, there are only 20 things you need to know. Now make your drivers license renewable every year and administer the test then. Track the wrong answers. There’re your bad drivers (and you may have prevented the worst from even getting a license). The questions can be easy. Make 5 variations of this test so you never know which 10 questions you’re going to get.

One feature about learning to drive is that basic handling skills and traffic laws can be learned quickly, whereas developing the perceptual and cognitive skills for recognizing hazards and effectively dealing with them takes longer. 

A second feature is that what constitutes being an average driver, in terms of collision involvement, keeps changing, whereas drivers’ perception of what is average, or better than average, doesn’t keep up based on the tendency of more than 50% of driver to consider themselves as being better than average.  While each driver likely has good reason to believe that they are much more competent now than when they first learned to drive, it’s also likely that they don’t have a good basis for comparing their performance with the average.

Several years ago, “An Overview of the 100-Car Naturalistic Study and Findings” was issued by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  The document reported on an extensive experiment during which 100 vehicles were instrumented with detectors, cameras and recorders for a year.  The goal was to obtain pre-crash data about the causes of collisions.  About 43,000 hours of data for 240 operators who drove 2 million vehicle miles was obtained. 

Applying the findings of the study to the continuous improvement that occurs annually resulted in the following criteria for a teen novice driver to be no worse than an average peer driver over a lifetime:

• Surprises:                                                                                        no more than 6 per year
• Near-misses:                                                                                 no more than 1 every 4 years
• Non-Reportable Property Damage Only Collisions:              no more than 1 every 20 years
• Reportable Property Damage Only Collisions:                       no more than 1 every 40 years
• Injury Collisions:                                                                           no more than 1 every 400 years
• Fatality Collisions:                                                                        no more than 1 every 12,000 years.

Where the above events are defined as follows:

Surprise: if something suddenly appears in your driving arena, like a burst of sunlight when you turn a corner, an icy patch on the roadway ahead, a vehicle that is suddenly on your tail or an unexpected, immediate sharp turn in the roadway, there’s a good chance that you missed the early signs of a significant hazard.  Whatever it was, the configuration of the roadway, the sequence of a traffic signal, a blind intersection, the location of a stop sign, and so on, you need to remember it for the next time and watch out for similar situations elsewhere.

Near-miss: an event requiring a sudden evasive manoeuver by a given driver or other road user to avoid a collision with, by, or because of, the driver’s moving or waiting vehicle.  For the driver, this means turning, stopping or accelerating (even momentarily) at the maximum capability of the vehicle. 

Non-reportable property damage only collision: an at-fault collision involving one or more vehicles where no one is injured or killed and where the total property damage cost is less than $2000.

Reportable property damage only collision: an at-fault collision involving one or more vehicles where no one is injured or killed and where the total property damage cost is more than $2000.

Injury collision: an at-fault collision where a road user (vehicle occupant, motorcyclist, bicyclist, pedestrian, etc.) is injured and receives medical aid.

Fatal collision: an at-fault collision where a road user (vehicle occupant, motorcyclist, bicyclist, pedestrian, etc.) dies within 30 days of a collision due to injuries received during that event.

Based on the above criteria, a better than average driver could be defined as one currently having an incident frequency that is half each of the above whereas the record for a worse than average driver – a bad driver – could be defined as being at least twice as great as any of the above.

For me, a bad driver is anyone who takes risks while behind the wheel of a vehicle, no matter how large or small. Whenever any one of us gets into a car, truck or SUV and starts to drive there is an element of risk involved, but we all hope that if we drive carefully and responsibly and everyone else does the same, we will be relatively safe. I have now been driving for over 60 years and I am frequently horrified at the risks some drivers take when they are on the highway. So, for me, anyone who drinks alcohol, no matter how little, takes drugs or smokes marihuana, interacts with their infotainment system, talks on their cell phone or texts while driving is a bad driver. And, given the number of times I have witnessed drivers doing one or more of these things recently, I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised about the increase in ICBC rates!