Traffic instructor: People struggling to apply what they've learned in driving school
Traffic instructor Indrek Madar said that people are trained to pass their driving test without understanding what they learned in Estonia.
Madar would give traffic culture in Estonia a solid C+ in 2024. "There are brighter moments, while drivers still ignore basic truths, either willingly or due to not having obtained what they were taught," Madar said.
The expert said that it is problematic how driver training is approached in Estonia. "There is a national curriculum for training drivers. The minimum requirement is 43.5 hours of theory and practical training. People are told that they can always take more lessons, while it is another question whether they are prepared to pay more. Talking about doing the bare minimum, or what a particular driving school considers to be the meat and potatoes, the problem is that we are training people to pass the national driving test. It is not right," Madar said.
He recalled collisions and pileups that occurred this winter and asked whether no one involved heard warnings on the radio to keep a safe distance from the car in front. "Everyone hears these cliches, but they do not think about what it means to keep distance or how long it should be. We knew it when taking out theory test. I find that while people know what they were taught in driving school, they lack the ability to put it in practice on the road," the expert remarked, while he couldn't say why. "Maybe there is something wrong with the study methodologies," he said.
He said that people still make the same mistakes they do when the roads are slippery, adding that typical urban collisions have changed very little over time.
Madar said that next to drivers, pedestrians are no less problematic. "Talking about urban accidents, people getting hit by cars. While cars pose a bigger threat and drivers usually end up taking the blame, it needs to be asked whether the accident was caused by the driver alone, or whether it was caused by the pedestrian who stepped onto the road without looking. Pedestrians are obligated to make sure the driver sees them, give them enough time to stop the vehicle and are only then allowed to cross the road," Madar recalled.
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Editor: Neit-Eerik Nestor, Marcus Turovski
