We Have Built It . . .(Column)

Byline: Dutch Mandel

For years, this magazine has taken the approach that while it's possible to regulate safety into vehicles, a better avenue does not rely only on costly and heavy technology but incorporates rigorously heavy training. As an advocate of improved driver training, AutoWeek has done something no other in its field can claim. It has taken a position that, among other things, calls for national consciousness raising with the most passionate and influential car consumers the United States has to offer: you. We think of this as a call to action-a charge, a challenge that will save lives on our nation's roads.

We must do something. Some 45,000 people die each year on U.S. roads. That number-the equivalent of a jet filled with 120 people augering into the ground each day-hasn't changed much, though the number of miles driven has risen. Cars are safer, but we're not winning.

Simply, driver training in America is abysmal. We require of our children only minimal time learning the craft, and then we set them out on the roads. Would we expect a kid to perform a piano concerto after just a few hours at the keyboard? Yet we expect young people to perform flawlessly with a two-ton automobile, when what's at stake goes far beyond a trophy or a big paycheck.

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