The letter from Luke De Roeck (“Older drivers,” Voice, Oct. 24) was right on the money. I could not agree more with his assess-ment of our driving codes. Our present requirements for obtaining or retaining driving privileges are laughable, except for the unintended harm that often follows.
To illustrate the general lack of knowledge about driving is the constantly repeated assertion of the “stuck accelerator,” which is mindlessly repeated by the media without question. For the accelerator to become stuck, doesn’t it first have to be pushed down? No one ever talks about a “stuck break pedal.”
Likewise the often-repeated observation that absence of skid marks somehow suggests that the driver did not brake appropriately. Skid marks only indicate a locked wheel, which has less stopping power than a rolling wheel, so their absence says nothing about whether braking took place or not. With the ever-increasing use of ABS (antilock braking system), this is no longer a valid criterion anyway.
