See I really feel those two things should be part of the driving test. That and how to check oil.
Ehh....should you have to know how to unclog a drain or rewire a light switch before you're approved for a mortgage? (Agree, good skills to know/have when you start driving, but I don't think they should be mandatory).
^^^ Agree with CaliTerp. They should NOT be mandatory.
We already have
way too many laws designed for nothing but to protect people from themselves. Most of those laws don't work to protect the people they're designed to protect anyway. Those kinds of laws just end up a pain in the arse for everybody else, while people who need to be protected from themselves can always be counted on to find some way to screw themselves up.
GO brings up a good point on checking oil. Anybody who can't check their own oil is a dipstick.
(Before anybody who
doesn't know how starts whining ... relax, it's just a JOKE ... 'cause the dipstick is what you pull to check, and ... oh that's right, you don't know how. It's not hard, really! The first time you do it yourself you won't believe how freakin' easy it is.)
Checking oil might be even
more important than knowing how to jump a car or change a tire. Dead batteries and flat tires are easy to recognize and (hopefully) not a thing that happens repeatedly. But if your car is continually running low on oil you may never know it until something very expensive-to-fix goes wrong. It's
really easy to check oil ... look it up in your owner's manual. Don't have an owner's manual? Many are available online ... or if not easy instructions on checking oil, including exactly where to find the dipstick on any car. But here's the basics:
1. Lift the hood.
2. Look for a thing with a little loop on top that's sticking up .. that's the dipstick.
3. Pull gently on that looped thingy.
4. See the oil on the bottom? Wipe that off with a clean paper towel.
5. Look carefully at the bottom of the dipstick. Those lines on the bottom tell you how much oil your car has when you check it ... and indicate how much it
should have if it's low on oil.
6. Put the paper-towel-cleaned dipstick back where it was.
7. Lift the dipstick up again.
8. Look to see where the oil stops on those lines at the bottom ... if it's down too low you need to add oil. If the oil you see is very black ... you need to have your oil changed.
If the oil
is low and you have no idea where to pour in another quart ... take the car in to have more oil put in or the oil changed if needed. It doesn't have to be expensive to have oil changed ... Jiffy Lube and WalMart are both cheap.... and having oil changed/added if needed will save a lot more money down the line for expensive repairs that will be needed if you keep running the car with low oil and/or filthy oil.