Q&A - What Should a Passenger Do?

This 'Passenger' (I'm assuming that's what they are) has submitted a very difficult question, that has no simple answer.

I have been a licensed Driving Instructor in BC for about 27 years, and worked for ICBC as a Driver Examiner for 2 years during this time.  My experience has also included working as a TAO (Training Assessment Officer) both for Driving Instructor Applicants and Class 4 Driving License Applicants; additionally, I have conducted Driver Evaluations for a number of organizations and companies, as well as working with Occupational Therapists and their clients to determine both abilities and training requirements for individuals who have suffered physical and/or mental traumas, in order to determine their potential/requirement for rehabilitation in order to regain their driving privileges.

Taking control of a person or situation is generally a learned behaviour, augmented by training and experience.  It's an important skill for a parent or instructor when they teach a teenager how to drive.  It's an absolute necessity for a DE when he/she takes an applicant (who could be sixteen or sixty) out for a Road Test, and from the outset this degree of control is established to ensure that when behind the wheel, they will do their best to act on the directions of the DE.

Even so, about 50% of the Class 7 Applicants fail (sometimes through accumulated errors, but often enough because the DE has to take verbal control; or, if push comes to shove - so to speak - physical control, the last resort to prevent a collision with something or someone else).

What does physical control entail?  Depends on the options available.  In a Driver Training vehicle, there will be, at minimum, a brake pedal for the person in the right front seat - as well as a rear-view mirror, so that they can see what's coming up behind.  No steering wheel on their side though, those have been disallowed during examinations.  There might be a gas pedal.  At one time, it used to be mandatory to have an engine kill switch in reach, but this was eliminated more than twenty years back, when it was reallized that all modern vehicles have the ignition key/switch in reach of the right front passenger anyway.

In a regular automobile, the only physical control devices for the person in the right front seat are what's in reach.  The ignition key and/or engine start/stop button, almost certainly.  Parking Brake - maybe, if it's set into the console within reach.  Steering wheel should be reachable with their left hand, as Tim points out.  Driver's side brake and gas pedal?  Not likely if there's a console, and even without it there's a person in the way, who may or may not be unconscious, but in the case of a seizure might have their right foot immovably jammed on the gas pedal.

So even as a Driver Examiner commencing a Road Test with a fresh faced, healthy sixteen-year-old will have subtly established authoratative control and communication before commencement of their drive will also have noted to themselves as they got in the car what their physical control options might be if things go wrong, the first thing the 'Passenger' needs to figure out is what their options would be in a worst case scenario.

Let's think about these.  Directing the path of travel of the vehicle from the right hand side, using the steering wheel in front of the driver?  Ever tried this?  How about stopping the vehicle, using the parking brake (assuming it's in reach)?  Ever tried this?  It's easy enough to experiment by yourself when driving from the left (hint: be certain you keep the release button pushed in, and that you've checked behind you).  I'll bet you will never again  term that almost useless device an 'Emergency' brake again.  And meanwhile, if we're contemplating a scenario where the driver is unconscious, and quite possibly frozen on the gas pedal, then what's it like to control a vehicle with no power steering or (after one or two applications at most) no power brakes due to suddenly turning off the ignition key?  Every driver should know how this feels, and what's needed to control the vehicle, but few do even though any vehicle can have a fuel or ignition failure.  And if you can't calmly handle this from behind the wheel in a controlled experiment, then you're not at all likely to be able to do so from the passenger side in the best of circumstances.

As Tim points out so succinctly, 'panic would not be your ally'.  Which is why I'm going over all these options and details so laboriously.  When a person panics, they're worse than useless, incapable of coherent action.  People panic because intellectually, they simply don't know what else to do.  That's why training is so important - for Driver Examiners, for Paramedics, for Firemen - and for Police Officers, perhaps more than anyone; you don't want somebody behind the wheel of a high power cruiser, with a gun on their hip, losing control of any situation, or of themselves; I'll bet that Tim as a cop went through training involving a zillion different tense scenarios to ensure that when confronted with a potentially overwhelming situation he would have built-in trained reflexes and behaviours to ensure his ability to respond rationally without panicking. 

So my first question for the 'Passenger' would be - are you sure you're ready for this?  Physically, and mentally, capable of taking over the situation?  Do you actually have the training, the experience, the capacity to ensure that you can overcome the possible consequences if the driver does become unconscious, or have a seizure?  Sure, the goal (which is simply to get the vehicle stopped as soon as possible, preferably out of the way of traffic, and absolutely without hitting anything or anyone) is simple enough.  But do you really think you have what it takes to do it?

And the reason I ask this is simple.  Are you ready to face the consequences, should this theoretical driver (who I'm guessing you know quite well, and may well be related to) have a heart attack, or seizure, or become unconscious?

Sure, it might turn out the only damage done is that the car ends up in the ditch and you both have a big laugh about it afterwards.  But it could also turn out that you're unable to overcome the situation, and the vehicle is inadvertently propelled into a bunch of school children waiting at a bus stop, and suddenly everybody's world is turned upside down and irrevocably shattered by the blood and the broken bones and the horror.  And if that's the consequence of having a driver behind the wheel who should have been reported to their physician, or RoadSafety BC aka Office of the Superintendent as being a medical risk, then you don't have any choice, really.  And it isn't trying to learn how to try and take over if they suddenly can't control the vehicle any more due to a foreseable heart attack - your responsibility is to do your utmost to prevent the circumstance arising in the first place.