Driving a car ? As easy as riding..... well.. a bike?

[gar]

The trouble with cars is that they are as easy for anintelligent ape to drive as well..... a bicycle.

A bike is a good deal more difficult to ride safely than it is to drive a car.

What is more if a car touches a cyclist the cyclist may be injured. The converse is not true.
The converse is that the cyclist may still be injured.

Do you have to be able to balance to drive a car?

gar

[Jim Davis]

Driving is a highly complex task involving control of heavy machinery with a high capacity to damage, injure, or kill. Cycling is a far simpler task - after all, a child can do it - which exposes other road users to levels of risk in the same range as that of a pedestrian or horse rider.

Asking whether you need to balance when driving a car is a bit like asking whether you would be able to control a bicycle at 70mph - utterly pointless.

[gar]

Hardly pointless; some cyclists balance at 130mph;
and they HAVE to balance.

I am not a motor engineer or designer but I did read that there are very few movements required for the driver behind the wheel. In fact it is perfectly obvious that it is so. So few that whilst the cyclist would fall off his bike from not balancing (especially at 100mph)
the car driver is able to enjoy snatches of white sleep as he drives along.

I am interested in your reply.

g

[Kevin]

One of the key points stressed by cycle trainers is that riding a bike should an essential pre-requisite to driving a car. After all its not the mechanical act of driving that kills, its the way that it is driven. A more rounded road user should make a better driver, look at the pedestrian and cyclist casualty figures in other countries and see where the British tolerance of dangerous driving gets us.

[gar]

My point is that the mechanical act of driving and the WAY it is driven may be one and the same thing. Our companion thinks otherwise.

Your point about prerequisite cycling for car drivers is an excellent one, but it surprises me how forgetful I can be about not giving the cyclist his wobble; and I cycle every day.

g

[herrmann]

Driving a car is a bit like sitting in a comfortable armchair in your centrally heated living room. Unfortunately the room is hurtling across the surface of the earth at high speed. Hence, drivers losing concentration or consciousness, and accidents. I remember when cars were uncomfortable, and unbelievably draughty and cold. It kept the driver awake.
Driving may be technically difficult, but there's too much technology making it a semi-conscious activity.

[gar]

The technology making the technicalities easy
... and so a semi conscious activity?

You have said it in a way that I could not
quite express.

Tx

Gar