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The weather is dismal at the moment with high winds and rain making driving more difficult and more treacherous. With water all over the roads one of the primary concerns is skidding, a relatively common occurrence but something that many drivers struggle to deal with.
There is the school of thought that driving lessons essentially teach pupils to get a driver's licence rather than ensuring that inexperienced drivers can safely deal with the hazards that driving can throw at them. The Department for Transport admits that despite the test becoming more difficult in recent years (with pass rates falling 10% since the early 1990's), "little progress has been made in reducing the casualty rates for young car drivers".
While we have a strict testing process, in some countries around the world, passing the driving test is recognised for being significantly more challenging. For proof of that just ask the 68-year-old South Korean grandmother who has failed her driving test 771 times.
In the UK, a novice driver can theoretically pass their test without taking a single driving lesson with a qualified instructor. This means that many drivers are not necessarily equipped to deal with motoring emergencies, which makes it important to drive a vehicle that makes you safer.
I have been to several events in the past year where Electronic Stability Control (ESC) has been on show, and the more I see it the more important I think it is. ESC works by stabilising the vehicle in critical situations, preventing skidding by monitoring the position of the steering wheel and comparing it with the direction that the car is heading. Sensors around the car can detect if a vehicle is straying from the intended line of travel and help to bring it back on track by braking individual wheels.
On many new cars it now comes as standard in the same way that ABS does, but not on all vehicles. It has been a compulsory feature on Arval's company car policy for some time and judging by crash related statistics, this stance is totally justified.
Around 40% of fatal road accidents are a result of skidding and so European safety leaders believe that ESC has the potential to cut accident rates by a similar amount. Obviously there is no substitute for careful driving, but being in a vehicle that has safety features such as ABS and ESC, motorists are reducing the odds of being involved in a serious road accident and therefore reducing the risk of death or serious injury.
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