Driving, Road Safety and being Fifteen? Re Terrible Accident Jacksonville Florida June 5th

I am reflecting the demise of the nine young people in Jacksonville Florida this morning. I do so from the standpoint of a life of driving and road safety. I did not however have any opportunity to be behind the wheel aged fifteen as the driver of this unfortunate vehicle was. My father only had a car in my fifteen years for a short time. I remember it was a long long car with running boards and it was awesome. I believe it had belonged to a doctor? It was also the only time I remember going on vacation together. We lived in Rainham Essex I believe which is East of London. We lived above the Baker shop and my dad was the baker. He worked the coke ovens and molded the bread also. He made fancy loaves that were plaited. He also had the skill of being able to take the ´pill´, a long handled pole with a flat end and to be able to slide the bread on metal flats right where he wanted them to go. The smells were gorgeous.

The one driving trip though was horrendous. For a start my dad had never passed a test or had any experience of driving. The vehicle was too big and cumbersome for a novice; I appreciate now after a life of experienced driving and researched road safety. My dad must have stopped at every pub along the way to the British Riviera of Cornwall. It was assumed to pee but maybe it was also ´Dutch Courage´? We did not have the right camping gear and knew nothing. Consequently we camped away from the rest of the tenters. Not a good idea as we were at the bottom of the field where it flooded and also where the cows congregated in the early morn. I lost a pair of favored if not somewhat ´smelly´ socks. My father had always accused me of having particularly smelly feet? My mother had maybe been too kind to confirm at the time? Another remembered incident of that one and only family vacation was when my mother attempted to make us look camp ´savvy´ by putting two suitcases on top of each other to look from afar like a proper table. With a sheet over it looked like we were sitting down to a proper meal like most of them were? Just to top it off my mother put a bottle of liquid coffee on the table (Bev) so it looked like ketchup. Problem was that my little sister promptly uncapped it and poured it all over her meal before anyone could stop her. We all had to contribute from our plates after that so she would not starve? I became a very adept camper over time and no thanks to my mother and father.

My school just kicked you out when you were fifteen and we were delighted to go. My parents could not wait to get my meager contribution to the family economy. It was a while before I actually got a regular job. None of my peers had a car then and none of them went on to extended schooling. Later on one quite rich friend would take us for a ride in his convertible but even with the top open he still did not allow anyone to smoke. Apart from that we had motorbikes after a fashion. Mine had a broken kick start spring with a bungee cord holding it up. One time I leant over and it had come undone and I pirouetted into a hawthorn bush. Could have been worse? No broken bones but plenty of sores and abrasions. We all knew lads who had died in motorcycle accidents. I had several but was lucky I guess?

I did have a few driving lessons later when I could afford in a Renault Dauphine which was a tricky car. I took my test after about 7 lessons and failed. I went back to my motorcycle in disgust. If they did not want me on the road driving, then they would not get me, was my immature mindset. After a failed apprenticeship of a couple of years that my mother had encouraged me to work at I realized I was not strong enough on science and math to be a chemical apprentice and when I found out that after five years if I did not pass my city and guilds I would just be a ´chemical worker´. I left and fiddled about with some manual jobs that paid well like ´insulation engineer´ which meant laying on your back in a tunnel and cutting glass piping covering that got into your clothes and made you itch like mad. In 1961 I went to the recruiting office with two mates and we all went into the army. I went into the Royal Army Service Corps and one went into the East Anglian Regiment and one into the Royal Engineers who built bridges and bombed things. I wanted to be a driver and not march in the Infantry. I got through basic training ok and became tougher and did driver training in Yeovil Somerset. My few previous lessons allowed me to sail through the training and pass the basic and be selected to take the higher standard whilst the others were scrambling around having near misses. I learned then that it is much better for the moral to be a higher peg on a lower ladder than to strive and be out of your achievement capability with a higher aspiration. We were only four who got the higher level of driver training and it served me well in my military career and for the rest of my working life. As a driver in Germany I was selected to drive ´staff cars´ and more and more senior officers. As a NATO driver I had a Mercedes and got a trip to Paris on a delivery to SHAPE headquarters and the guy I took had saved so we got to do the Moulin Rouge. I had a gendarme bash the side of my plush car with his baton when he tried to make me go in a direction I did not need to go in. He actually threatened to break the headlight. I also had my trafficators fail in Paris. I ended up trying to wave my hand over the roof to tell people what I intended. Not fun.

I went to Bielefeld the headquarters of the British Corps and after several trips to Berlin as I kept my identity card pristine I was assigned to the Chief of Staff Brigadier Patrick Hobart. He was a great guy with a huge family and was worked to death with all he had me do but he was loyal to his driver. When we went on trips to Hanover or Hamburg it was like going to a hotel. They had orders to look after me as sometimes I did not catch up with him again for days. The General was a fast driver and several times I was required to follow him in his own car and we would both be caught in a German radar trap and the General had to pay for both of us speeding. He and his wife were both later killed in a road accident long after I left the army in 1970. When he got a promotion to Major General and appointed to the War Office as DMO (Director of Military Operations) he took me to London with him. I was not appointed to him as they used a pool of drivers but everyone in the now Royal Corps of Transport wanted to be in 20Sqn Regents Park Bks. My driving skills had worked for me once more. I was in army driver heaven.

As a military driver in London I had to learn all over again. I went back to the classroom for several months. Firstly I had to learn London. I would be driving senior officers of all three services and also Ministers. Learning London was done by three or four in a car driving around and getting the answers to questions set out on paper such as ´What are the Roman numerals on the façade above the Tate Gallery´? ´What is the name of the boat moored next to the Discovery on the Embankment´? I soon learned all side street escapes as you were not supposed to get held up in traffic. Amazing how many ´mews´ shortcuts there are when you are trying to get your ´officer´ to Battersea Helipad on time. He is probably flying to connect at Heathrow? This is important stuff. There are also hundreds of other good soldier drivers wanting your job. If the General is constantly having his cigar ash falling on his pants before he gets it to the ashtray you might get replaced. Rank recognition of all three services and etiquette as to who gets the car door opened first in whichever circumstance and also defensive escape driving where all part of the training. As far as smoothness of passage you had to drive with a three penny bit on the top of the dash at times. I got to drive Minister Godber and Denis Healey and Field Marshall Mansergh ´retired´, the highest ranked military man at the time. The full honor though came when I was chosen to drive for the Queen. I had been close by on several occasions such as the opening of Parliament and Remembrance Day Parade and the Trooping of the Color. On one ´trooping´ I had driven the Director of Medical Services General and we had both been in the bell tower above Horse Guards Parade with binoculars alerting teams on the ground by walkie talkie. I had also picked up and dropped of at the Palace on occasion. This was a greater honor though as the Queen had at that time two special vehicles gifted to her by Bedford Trucks that were awesome. They had multiple layers of green paint and the Royal Standard painted on the side. They were kept under wraps and shiny at all times. These two vehicles were rarely used but just now and then they were called for. Then you had the business of who would be picked for the honor of driving them. There were about 50 of us pool drivers of all kinds of limousines. We were the equivalent of being ´Rolls Royce´ trained. We had Austin Princesses and Daimler Benzes and several other vehicles. Being informed that I was picked to drive one of the Queens Baggage Vehicles at age 25 was quite an honor indeed. It was a great experience and I had to convey the Queens stuff from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle just before Christmas 1968.

My interesting moments in driving in my nine years in the military were being given nine motor cycles at Dortmund on arrival in Germany and being a B2 driver getting job of dispatch rider. Dropping several of the bikes on the cobblestones and being relieved of that post fairly soon after! Being given a ten ton truck instead and not knowing how to turn the damn thing off to go to break? You had to lift the accelerator with your foot? Being in a three ton truck in a small German town and on seeing a buddy in a self same truck coming the other way getting too close and ripping the ´rub rail´ off both trucks. Whoops. Pulling out of a line of trucks and not allowing for length at age 19. Being in a jeep on way back to base in Rheindahlen Moenchengladbach and following the Military Fire Brigade to a massive theatre fire and running ladders for them. Then the bar being declared open and overdoing it. Bad, very bad.

Being in a NATO unit and getting a Mercedes staff car to drive. Getting the trip to Paris. Getting a great trip to follow the Danube and sketch canoe launching places and staying in B & B´s. Getting a great trip to Kristiansand´s Norway and driving in civvies as they were ´neutral´. Getting several trips to Berlin and staying in Spandau where Rudolph Hess, Hitler´s second in command was the only prisoner. Going through Check Point Charlie, because we could. Driving Colonel Eberhardie to Berlin who was a hero in Borneo. He faced up to the Russian War Memorial Guard for several minutes before turning on his heel and getting back in the car. Leaving Berlin past the grandstand and being mesmerized by a tanker going up on its sides and ´just´ avoiding going right over. Sharp squeeze of the shoulder by officer helped.

Driving the Chief of Staff of HQ 1 (BR) Corps, Brigadier Patrick Hobart MC and his big family and wife ex Windmill dancer and all it entailed. He once nearly got out of the car to rescue a Brit ´squaddie´ being beaten up in the a.m. behind the barracks. I had to speed off as the General the worse for wear stated to unsheathe his dress sword. He had been entertaining the German mayor and I foresaw the headlines the next day? I had to leave the squaddie to his own devises? Seeing things in the back of my car that only a London cabbie would be used to? Being rewarded with awesome loyalty between General and Corporal? Being able to see more of Europe than most and in comfortable Humber Super Snipe?

Being part of London events. Being a young man living in the heart of London and all that entails. Free theatre tickets and shows. Seeing it all from the comfort of a limo. Wearing best dress most days.

Driving for the Queen and going ´below stairs´ where the ´canteen´ was and where the laundry and silver room and offices are and where the floors are linoleum and the walls emulsion and a red telephone box just sits there for me to ´phone home´ and say "guess where I am calling from"? Driving out through the front gates with all the crowds and resisting the urge to slide the door open and announce inappropriately "Hey Folks, I´ve got the Queens stuff in the back here". I indeed, had all her frocks and the ladies in waiting in large walk in leather Wardrobes. She was off to Windsor for the annual Staff Party to take place and I believe that the band ´Queen´ were booked to play for all the staff of Buck house and Sandringham and Balmoral and James Palace. No I did not get invited and for ´extra pay´ I got three newly minted ´half crowns´ and the loaders, who were from the Guards, got a beer as well. No beer for the drivers but I was a hero back at Regents Park Barracks for months to come.

I also was later assigned specifically to a Coldstream Guard General Whitworth. I was allocated a great house in Sunbury-on-Thames and my neighbor in a grand mansion nearby, was Tom Jones who had been at school in Pontypridd South Wales when I was. I never saw Tom in Sunbury. My job was great at that time as all I mostly had to do was drive to Cobham Surrey across the Thames and pick up the General in the morning and then take him home at night 5pm. It must have been the best job in the army. The rest of the day was mine and he rarely went into London and then usually by train. My black limo just sat outside my door. In 1970 my nine years were up and I was just a mere ´civvy´.

I struck lucky in my home district of Rainham as the milkman had been teaching all the locals to drive and now legislation came in that you had to be Government Approved and on a National Register. I soon qualified and worked for a lady whose husband had built up a big clientele. The guy who had been ´holding the fort´ forever for little money, broke away as soon as I qualified and I was left with the workload. I was working for 17 English pounds a week and then I went on my own and was earning 70 pounds a week. Quite a jump? I later had a Broadway office and later still moved to Peterborough Cambridgeshire where I had my business from 1976-2001. I made good money from driving although the profit margin is not like here in the States. I guess that when I was working twelve hours a day, five days a week and ten hours on Saturday and Sunday I was paying for all those free hip replacements. I had a great system whereby my car was on test at 9am and 2pm every day of the week so I got breakfast and dinner without the car wheels stopping. My pupil had the examiner with them those times. I don´t know where I got so ambitious but it certainly burnt me out quick. Good while it lasted.

Some of my pupils taught me more about teaching than I taught them about driving. One lady had several disabilities and her husband did not have the nerve to drive a car. A bit like my dad? He drove a moped to work and back. This lady took nine tests over three years before she passed and the problems were that she had a semi withered right hand. If she stalled the engine she had to reach through the steering wheel and restart with her left hand. Right hand drive of course. She could not bend at the waist so she had to lay/sit. She had one leg shorter than the other so could not get to the brake quickly and kept failing the ´emergency stop´ test. She had to learn not to stall the engine and how to anticipate the stop ´call´. She used to use the lesson to get her shopping home at the same time. The bus queue would be ´gobsmacked´ to see this lady laden with shopping and walking with a ´gait´ getting into the driving school car and driving like a pro up the road. This was after two years mind you. She just could not convince the examiners? When she finally passed I did my usual post mortem and I asked her what had been the worst moment and the thing she worried about the most during her three years? Had it been the expense? I had frequently advised her that it might end up costly. Had it been the worry of having a wreck? Had it been failing another test? I was humbled to hear that the thing she would worry about was that I might one day give up on her and after a lesson say I would not be turning up again? That, of all things was what she lost sleep over? Yes a lesson in life and if only we could read minds?

In my new life in Peterborough I taught the ethnic minority to get a start and I saw boys become men and ten to a house become business owners and mansion dwellers and counselors. I saw where no Asians could teach becoming Government Approved Driving Instructors and teaching their own. I saw men who would arrive on bicycles for their lesson using shoes as brakes become leaders of their community. I found that where I had taught the fathers I was now teaching the sons and daughters. I taught the Vietnamese refugees and the Ugandan Kenyan refugees and even one Asian who could not speak or hear and who had to learn a complete new language between us done with the hands in front of his face. You cannot lip read on a lesson anyway unless stopped? He did one lesson with a newspaper reporter in the back who wrote a big story on it. The guy passed his test and eventually learned English sign language and married a Chinese nurse. I had to instruct the examiners as to how to examine him. He was able to stop being a back room fast food cook and started his own bulk Chinese food suppliers with a few trucks. I learned some Chinese as well over the years. I saw my pupil´s progress but I still lived in the same house. I was proud to be known as ´prophet not profit´. I became the Chairman of the City Road Safety Committee and we met in the town hall to make decisions about city changes. We were a group of professionals from many driving experiences such as fire and ambulance etcetera. We discussed the layout of roads and new roundabouts and speed limits and accident ´hotspots´. We were volunteers. I feel that we made a big difference in the local road safety.

The inspiration for this article was the tragic event on Friday 5th June on the 1-295 Interstate encircling Jacksonville Fl. Nine kids sneaking off last day at school to go to the beach. A rear tire separates and they roll over several times and all of them are spilled except the driver. He was the least injured and the only one wearing (or able to?) a seatbelt? I think again about my own experiences aged fifteen which are worlds different from these kids here in Jacksonville and I think of my kids aged fifteen. I had three step sons that I had little influence on when they were teenagers and they got into some scrapes and I had just a slightly greater influence on my own two girls as fifteen year olds. At least I stayed nearby for them although I was divorced from their mother. I am so pleased that driving was not on their minds.

At the time of them being fifteen I was a busy driving instructor and the chair of the Road Safety Committee and had often been on the local radio as I was also the Chairman of the Peterborough Institute of Advanced Motorists. We were a volunteer group of drivers who gave of their time to help other drivers to train for and achieve the higher standard of Advanced Motorist. I had been involved in this volunteer group for many many years. Having the higher standard can help in an accident situation where there is doubt as to blame. You can also get cheaper insurance if you are ´Advanced´.

In Britain the only ones I have had to teach at age fifteen have been disabled. Brittle bones would be a reason for being allowed to drive at a tender age. They need to drive so bad that they usually put a great deal of effort into the training and get extra family help. At the time of my being a Government Approved Driving Instructor the age for actual road driving was seventeen. I am led to believe that these days you can drive with supervision aged seventeen but you cannot take the test and become a full driver until you are eighteen. Most youngsters I taught took roughly nine months to learn and did so financed by income or family support. Lessons at the time were about $20. That was in the late nineties. The test itself was very comprehensive. It lasted about fifty minutes and had been recently extended to take in more rural roads as well as city roads. It was only possible to take the test in certain areas so if you lived somewhere really rural you would have to travel in both to learn on those type roads and also to take the test there. I also had Gypsy pupils living way up North who would come down by train to meet with me and take a couple of hours training. I would be the one who decided in ninety percent of cases when they would take the test. I would sometimes get a natural who would be ready in a month but who would still have to wait two or three months for a test appointment like it or not?

One of the anomalies of the British test is that, if you failed, you had to wait one month to retake the test, no matter how well off you were. Many of my pupils had to wait a while to re afford the tuition but I did get those to whom money was ´no object´ and they would hate having to wait that long time even over a minor mistake. I felt that to be a good thing at the time as having money should not mean advantage. I always felt also that those who failed their first test made the better drivers. They would be more humble anyway although as a failed youngster I was not?

I actually did teach kids at school to drive and it was reported in the papers at the time as something unique. I crafted the idea with a local teacher and he sold it to his headmaster. I would charge my hourly rate to do a classroom lesson to sixteen year olds who sometimes lose their direction at that age. I then charged my hourly rate to give actual car training on the school grounds. It was interesting to see just how much could be achieved on a school yard and field. One of the things that young drivers would fail for constantly would be sloppy steering. Many adults also would steer so far and then let go and wait for the self centering to bring the wheel back to straight. You would fail for doing that in Britain. The wheel had to be completely under control at all times. The wheel had to be fed from the left hand to the right hand and back again and it required training. Mostly once that is learned it is adhered to and much safer in a blowout etcetera. ´Turning in the road´ was one of a possible three exercises to be demonstrated. The examiner was at liberty to choose which ones and the other two were ´parallel parking´ and ´reverse turn´. The turning in the road had to be done in the least amount of maneuvers (usually three) and without hitting the kerb, which was usually sloped, so needed handbrake, clutch and gas pedal coordination. As an aside, most people learned in a stick shift as to pass in an automatic meant only being licensed to drive an automatic. Most vehicles are automatic in the UK as the amount of control and quick move off required on test and at roundabouts could mostly only be achieved in a manual gear box. To spend too long at a roundabout or stopping unnecessarily when clear or able to fit in might earn a fail for hesitancy. Also going too slowly behind a semi on a fast road in rain might mean a fail for lacking confidence. That is why so many took so long to learn and especially when learning late in life as many did due to economic restraints in the UK at that time. During the seventies drivers in the UK were mostly men. As women became good wage earners they were the mainstay of my income. I saw a nation of women go from the types most likely to drive peering nervously over the steering wheel to being just as likely to be the one giving a one finger salute to the bus driver cutting them up. I had always thought aggression to be a male thing but over the years in observation of both my own and other female drivers I discovered that it was all a case of confidence and nothing else. It has often surprised me here in Jacksonville to duly note that quite often the aggressive speeder and lane changer and tailgater is likely to be a young business like looking female. I actually think that in America even the most passive and responsible female driver is likely to be super aggressive when traveling fast even if they would evaporate if confronted on a roadside pullover. Not a good thing in my estimation?

One of the things I meant to say quite early in this article that I have neglected to do is to remark on the fact of how I felt about my own girls learning to drive. Having experienced the trials and tribulations of learner drivers over thirty years I was well aware of how difficult it is to put an old head on young shoulders. There are things that catch young drivers out. Driving in wet and snow and with heavy loads for example. I made mistakes in the military as chronicled and I can recall one other in London driving a three ton truck that I was not used to. You can drive anything in the military that you would not usually be allowed to. This novelty job I had involved bringing this empty truck from one camp to another and I volunteered for it. Problem was that the truck had off road tires on and when I left it a shade too late to brake for stopping traffic in front in busy London my vehicle just slid right into the vehicle in front. That vehicle just happened to be a fully loaded glass supplier truck. Not one pane of glass survived and there were expensive shop fronts on the sides. I was lucky to get away with it due to the tires not being suitable for normal road work. It was a big lesson for me though and I had many years of driving all over Europe? It just goes to show that you have to consider it all and you never know it all. I had even had a chance in Germany to have a short drive in a tank transporter weighing ninety tons and having twenty seven gears. You changed at two miles and hour and at five miles and at ten miles etcetera.

Back to the business of driving aged fifteen. I would have been horrified had my children been driving at that age and certainly in Jacksonville style traffic. I kept my children at arms length at seventeen let alone fifteen and of course they were taken around by older friends. My youngest was highly involved in soccer and was taken all over the country to games. I went myself to some games and no way was my daughter going to travel with me. Fortunately for me and for her it was a very strict motoring world and even when a youngster first passed the test they were on probation. Whereas the experienced driver had a twelve point leeway to error, the new driver had only six points for the first year. It was very easy for them to lose the license in that time. In fact, one of the young people I had taught at school had passed the test very easily and quickly. As an aside, his mother had contacted me soon after my classes had started to say that her son had a new lease on life with the driving lessons as he excelled and had the nerve required. His other subjects even improved now he was shining above others for a change? My story about this guy though extends to his undoing. He was taking his girl friend to work as she had her car in the shop. He was speeding down a certain Peterborough street on two days running and eventually in the post he got his speeding charges. In a way the discipline of motoring in the UK is worth its weight in gold. Driving is a privilege in England and that privilege can be soon taken away. In the case of this young man he had been caught by camera and the fine and points deducted were ´set´. He was fined about $70 on each occasion and deducted three points. He lost his license which he idolized as someone in the car repair business without even being aware of his misdemeanor until getting it in the post. One can feel a little sorry for a story like that but in my experience here in the states there is not a real discipline on the roads. It is such a big requirement here that no one can really be denied the ´right´ and then it becomes a right rather than a privilege. There is no way to turn the clock around in America in the matter of driving anymore than it is possible to reduce guns. I would like to see more of a determination to address the problems of teenage road deaths. I would like to see more restrictions on kids that get it all and get it all ´too soon´. What can I say? Limit new drivers. Limit the number of passengers. Keep them off Interstates. Young drivers are not allowed on Motorways in the UK. Even adults learning are not allowed on the Interstate equivalent in the UK. Drivers who err badly in the UK are made to suffer the financial and humiliation set back of proving themselves all over again in a test that really examines all aspects of their driving skills on all kinds of roads. They also have to pass a separate theory test that runs out if they do not then go on to pass the practical in the required duration of time. Becoming a driver is a costly undertaking in the UK. Controls are tight and exacting. It works.

I know there can be no comparison between the driving experience in the UK and here. Public transport is so much better there and sharing is a natural phenomenon. Both of my girls finally found the resources and the mental commitment to undertake seriously the business of passing the test. I know it can happen to the best to us but still I am sure that they learned a lot from the passenger seat and in time had the right mental approach to such an important part of life. I am sure that the whole school will look upon driving in a different mindset for at least a year and the ones directly involved might never get over it and may take a lot of therapy to become good and safe drivers themselves. My wife´s daughters boyfriend had an awful accident on Main St Bridge in bad weather in April and was an entirely different character for a while. He maybe still is. He broke his neck. He stated he would never drive again. He probably will out of necessity and so will the young people from this recent tragedy. Braking and lane changing in the wet on a metal grid is not a good idea. I found out on a Bailey Bridge on exercise in Germany. Why can I not just program every young person to know that tires won´t hold in those circumstances and the wheel held still and brakes and gas must be used as if they are connected by a wine glass stem? Why in this day and age have these young people got to find out the hard way. Why do some not survive the lessons of speed and weight and care and control?

In conclusion I hope that in the future we might find a way to keep our young people safe by increased supervision and discipline and volunteer services and by improved training and understanding of the seriousness of being in charge of a lethal weapon at such tender ages. I understand that in the most part we tend to hope for the best and that takes care of most matters but there certainly are too many of these incidents where kids who have survived fifteen long years of growing and developing seem not to properly understand the consequences of driving errors. Not being belted. Not inspecting tires. The difference bad weather makes. The difference that extra weight makes in car handling capabilities? All these things matter and this would be a great time to address the issues that are possible to change.

Hoping that we will not be discussing a similar incident again anytime soon and that the powers that be will initiate methods to change the present conditions and mindsets that surround young drivers.

Clifford Patrick Lockyer. Ex. British Road Safety Expert Jacksonville Florida patricklockyer@aol.com