I somewhat suspect you're out of touch.

I've been a a passenger in the third world and you need to be made of stern
stuff to deal with it.

Graham

I was being a smart a.s, dummy.

I gradueated befur you wz born. sometimes the keys bounc and spelchker
desnt do commas.

  I later found that the road medium was made very porous and
incorporated a very efficient drain system, both on the sides and under
the pavement. (German origin).   Not sure this was just experimental or
used in certain areas, but it was sure welcome.

Not for ab-initio training, *no way* !

Simulators are used more for type conversion and checking currency where it's
possible to harmlessly simulate technical failures.

Graham

At the time it wasn't required (I think it still is not)

It was beyond bad.  Picture a standard semitruck trailer.  Inside the
trailer
at the front of the trailer was a movie screen.  Then set at regular
intervals
in the trailer were two rows of car seats, each seat containing a steering
wheel and a dashboard and gas and brake pedal in a kind of a console.

In operation they ran a movie that was basically shot through the front
window of a car that travelled about 30Mph through a series of gentle
turns.  The students sat in the seats, turning the steering wheels to follow
the turns.  Supposedly all the consoles were tied into a teachers console
that would tell the teacher if a particular student was turning their
steering
wheel too hard, or stepping on the gas or brake too hard, etc.  of course
the steering wheels and pedals wern't connected to anything so there was
no mechanical feedback to the "driver" through the wheel or pedals.
The design of the wheels and speedo and dashboard was definitely
early 1960's I remember, as they looked almost exactly like my Dad's
1967 Ford station wagon which he still had at the time.  (damn that
thing was tough)  This class was held in about 1982 if I recall.

We got about 2 weeks of this nonsense before actually sitting in a car
and driving it.  I guess they must have decided they just had to get their
money's worth on renting the damn trailer.

Looking back and thinking about it now I realize how awful the rest of
the class was.  For example one part we were given a map and told
to draw a route from one address to the other through the city.  Of
course as high school students who wern't drivers nobody had the
foggiest idea of what they wanted done.  I myself drew a line that
ran straight through the city on one of the major E/W arterials and
got a C on it.  I wasn't until later that I realized they were probably
looking for a more circumspect route that took the major freeways.
And it wasn't until much, much later than that I realized my original
route was probably the best because the damn freeways half the time
are plugged with accidents and congestion. (at least these days they are)
Needless to say the "teachers" did not explain to anyone what
constituted a good map and what constituted a bad one.

Another time on one of the actual driving sessions they took us to a
suburb that was under construction (no houses built yet) and had us
drive through the streets dodging manhole covers.  Which was a
pretty serious issue because the builders had only got the first layer of
asphalt down and each manhole was sticking up about 4 inches from
the road surface.  I guess they were too cheap for the more usual
orange plastic cones.  All of the cars were dealer-supplied I am sure
if the dealers knew that they were risking a $1000 suspension repair for
side swiping a 4 inch high iron manhole they would have freaked.

There was NO practice on driving on anything other than hard dry
pavement. No skid testing.  They didn't even have us run the vehicle up to
45Mph or so in a parking lot and slam on the brakes as hard as we
could to demonstrate how easy it is to lose control during a panic
stop. No discussion of the difference between a snow tire, all season
radial, etc.  Despite that this is a pretty rainy state during the winter.
No discussion of what constitutes a necessity kit (rope, flares, etc.)
No discussion or training on how to make a safe stop on a freeway,
or what to do if your car abruptly loses power, no discussion on how
to calculate mileage, or check speedometer timing using highway
mileposts, I could go on and on and on.

The whole thing was a complete scam designed to scam money out
of parents who didn't want to be bothered to teach their kids to drive.
Which it did perfectly.  But the people that put the thing on were in
my view as guilty of negligence as you can imagine and should have been
taken out and shot.

What that whole thing taught me was how NOT to do driver training
and it will be quite different with my own kids once they are of age for
it.

Ted

Ooh - he misspelled a word.  Thanks for clearing that up.  How would us
uneducated, obese, retards on this side of the pond ever know what he
was talking about?

This is pure speculation, but perhaps it's because such behavior would
probably result in a ticket.

Because the left lane is generally available for passing. There's no
excuse for it in Europe.