It was not uncommon to be told that a new driver sign was not being displayed because adults took the sign as a signal to bully the new driver. I thought that was just a convenient excuse to give the policeman when you couldn't be bothered to make sure that the required sign was in place. After all, who wouldn't realize that a new driver deserved more room and a little leeway for mistakes because they were just beginning their driving career?
New Driver Being Bullied
Fast forward to today's drive home from work. I looked left to see that I had been overtaken by a Jeep being driven by a driver displaying the N of a novice driver. That driver wasn't significantly over the speed limit but it was the behaviour of the adult piloting the four wheel drive pickup twice the size of that Jeep following behind it that upset me. There was about 2B meters of space between their bumpers at 80+ km/h. While the Jeep was centered in the fast lane, the truck was half on the left shoulder and half in the fast lane. He wanted by NOW!
Bullying Goes Unreported
This "adult" probably realized that they would be less likely to face consequences for their aggressive driving because young drivers rarely report it to police. In fact, I did not often investigate a driving incident of this nature where the complainant, young or old, was willing to back up a request for charges with a court appearance. If traffic enforcement is not present to intervene, this is the only way that the offending driver can be sanctioned for their disregard of others.
Learning That Adult Drivers Cannot be Trusted
For this new driver, the lesson learned may not have been a good one. Adults cannot be trusted to do the right thing in traffic, youth are taken advantage of or perhaps even that it does not matter how you drive, as long as you don't crash there's nothing to worry about. Instead, I hope that the resolve was not to drive like this inconsiderate bully because driving safely matters to us all.
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Thank you for saying what I as a parent of an N driver wants people to hear. Don't bully the young drivers. In most cases, they are the ones driving better, shoulder checking, minding the speed limit and signalling when they should. They've all had a lot more training than we had to pass our tests 20 or so years ago. I've had three kids with L's and N's over the past three years and i know people are impatient with new drivers. My hope is that adults will give youth a break while they're learning to drive. After all, we were all new drivers at one time, weren't we?
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It’s not that we don’t trust new drivers. It’s that we do not and have not seen effective nor high driving standards from instructors. This is not the fault of instructors, but the very poor standards of government policies around driving.
The curriculum needs to be revised!
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I stay in the right lane and keep two seconds between me and the car in front.
Sometimes a Learner speeds past me or weaves between lanes to get ahead. In Duncan near the bridges a speeding Learner in an elderly, massive jacked up F-150 didn't obey Construction Ahead signs. The driver swerved out of the left lane in order to avoid causing a rear end collision. I got cut off because they needed my two second open lane. No worries.
I was young and did stupid stuff driving wheeled and tracked army vehicles.
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Good lesson here and I for one always try to accommodate New Drivers best I can but since I religiously drive within the posted speed limit I get passed (sometimes dangerously) by almost every body but to often by new drivers and quite often in a manner that shows the frustration with my driving and I feel there should be more emphasis when a new license is granted on driving behavior.
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We Were New Drivers Once Too