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Re-take your driving test?

We've all seen bad driving on the road.  We're never at fault, of course, it's always other people who don't seem to know what they're doing.  It might be an elderly driver doing 40 mph on a 60 mph road, someone driving without the correct lights on, or someone driving too close to the car in front, or someone not signalling before turning left.  If someone puts their hazard lights on unexpectedly, or flashes you, what do they mean?

The UK has the third-safest roads in Europe (after Sweden and Holland) and has been consistently in the top three for decades.  When you consider that we're rubbish at keeping to speed limits, or keeping our lights in proper working order, that's not a bad record.  But around 1,800 people die on the roads each year, and millions of journeys are disrupted by emergency road closures following accidents - we ought to try to do better.  Because nearly all accidents are caused by driver error.

So here's an idea.  Make everyone retake their driving test every ten years.  This will mean that bad habits are corrected, everyone has an up-to-date understanding of the Highway Code and everyone still has the faculties to drive safely.  It's worth pointing out, by the way, that elderly drivers tend to be among the safest drivers on the road - perhaps that's because they have a good understanding of their limitations, and drive accordingly, not like some younger drivers.  Whatever the reason, the statistics show that there's no reason to force drivers off the road just because they're old.

Anyway, back to the driving test re-take.  There are a number of possible outcomes from a re-take.  The examiner may say:

  • Very good.  See you in another ten years.

  • You're OK.  Just be mindful of X, Y and Z.  See you in another ten years.

  • I'm not completely happy.  You need to improve A, B and C.  You can keep on driving, but you'll need to demonstrate improvements.  See you in six months.

  • You're not safe enough.  I'm downgrading your license to provisional and you'll need to retake your test to get your full licence back.

  • You're not up to driving at all.  I'm cancelling your licence altogether and you'll need to re-apply from scratch if you want to drive again.

The first two outcomes will be the most common, with the second outcome being the most useful in terms of improving safety.  And we'll all have more pride in our driving, and have more respect for each other on the roads, if we know that every driver we meet, including the elderly driver in front of us, had been assessed as fit to drive in the last ten years.

It's not a panacea, of course - I've seen bad police driving, and bad driving from young drivers - drivers in both groups will have been assessed as fit to drive in the last ten years.  There are many other things that can be done to improve driving - such as videoing drivers (possibly without them knowing in advance) so they can see their driving as others see them.  This could help to reduce tailgating, or let drivers see the importance of using lights in daytime fog, for example.  And of course putting more and more safety features into cars will help.  But I maintain that the most important thing that can be done to improve road safety is raise the competence and standard of all drivers.

What do you think? Comments welcome

Postscript:  near-miss reporting

There are cameras all over the road, waiting to catch drivers who transgress the rules of the road.  These camera have a certain tolerance, e.g. you won't get a speeding fine for going a few miles per hour over the limit, because the camera/detector will only trigger if there is incontrovertible evidence that a vehicle is actually speeding.  This means that thousands of driving errors are being detected but ignored, so drivers may be regularly breaking the law, perhaps unknowingly, but not by enough to get a conviction.

A major tool in reducing accidents is to learn lessons from near-misses.  There are a lot more near-misses than accidents, so there is a lot more data to go on.  What I am suggesting is that we take advantage of the fact that nearly everyone, and particularly nearly all drivers, have access to the internet and have an email account.  So why not allow drivers to link their car registration number to their email account and let the cameras send their information to drivers by email?  It would be useful to know, for example, that we narrowly missed getting a speeding fine, or narrowly missed a fine for jumping a red light, or we were observed driving too close behind another car, or we stayed rather too long in the middle lane of the motorway.  Just a friendly word of advice, without threats of fines or points on your licence.

Or maybe there could be a police website that allowed drivers to log in, and they would be able to see all the times they have been recorded on camera - a sort of objective "how's my driving?" exercise.

This idea is borne of the opinion that most people are honest and want to be good citizens.  With this in mind, the police should be giving the information we need to keep safe, rather than treat us as the enemy, and be waiting to catch us out.  What is the point of a camera that regularly records someone speeding, but says nothing until that person speeds by enough to trigger a fine?  Is it there as money-making machine, or is it there for safety reasons?  It is time we had a more co-operative approach to reducing driving offences, rather than the police concentrate on setting traps for offences that they know they can get 'convictions' for.

What do you think? Comments welcome

Speed limiters on new cars - an idea borne out of a flawed understanding of road risks

I have recently seen an article suggesting that from 2022, all new cars will have speed limiters fitted, forcing everyone who has them fitted to keep to the speed limit.  Presumably, GPS will be used to inform the car what the speed limit is.

This is a bad idea from a control-freak government.  It is bad because:

  • it is dangerous for some cars to be speed-limited, and others not.

  • it will create a demand for older cars that do not have a speed limiter

  • it addresses only a small fraction of road traffic accidents, as most are caused by inattention, not speed

  • it makes the assumption that everyone is trying to break the law and takes away the incentive for drivers to improve there own driving by treating everyone like an idiot.  It contradicts the idea of cooperation between drivers and police.

  • if GPS fails, what happens to speed-limited cars?

I have no problem with fitting an audible warning in cars when drivers break the speed limit.  I call that a driver aid.  But electronic compulsion is a step too far from a government that is refusing to trust the law-abiding citizen and further alienates the people from the government.  If the measure were expected to reduce the number of fatalities on the road, then it would be a price worth paying, in the same way that we accept speed limits at all because they reduce road fatalities.  But this measure will not cut deaths - for every speed-related death that is prevented, there will be a different death caused by inattention because the driver was relying on the technology rather than his/her attention to the road.

Despite the ever-increasing regulations and stiffening of penalties for rule-breakers, the rate of deaths on the road has remained constant for the last six years.  Regulation and enforcement have reached the limit of what they can achieve.  It is time for a different approach - one that includes drivers as part of the solution, not part of the problem.

The only way to cut accidents is to improve driving standards in all areas of driving - not fixate on a small number of catchable offences!

What do you think? Comments welcome

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