Maybe its time to change the terms of holding a driving licence. .
Everyone to have an initial medical held by their own GP.
All tests to be held in English.
All overseas including EU countries visiting drivers if staying more than 2 months to take a basic induction just to show their competent.
Also with the above. If you have taken residents status ( living in the UK) you must sit a basic Q&A test along with a competency drive.
Eye test every 10yrs.
And anyone involved in an accident who was deemed at fault or partly at fault should be required to attened a full day driving skills course.
Of course visiting drivers in the course of their work ( haulage) would be exempt. But people who live here then go out of the country and return just to allow them to keep driving on the licence held in another country would not be able to continue to drive.
What’s think about that
fingers:
good idea. whos funding it? where are these inductions taking place. who’s funding it? xompetancy drive, who’s funding it? can you see where I’m going?
I’m sure the DSA would love to charge for those sort of test and I’m also sure IAM or someone alike would happily take people’s money for a full days driving course for being involved in a accident
fingers:
good idea. whos funding it? where are these inductions taking place. whos funding it? xompetancy drive, whos funding it? can you see where i’m going?
The driver after all the gov insist along with the EU as a pro driver we all need further training so why not Joe public …
The way I see it the biggest problem is the lack of policing of our roads and derisory fines and penalties handed out, 3 points and £60 for using a mobile is a joke once the deterrent becomes big enough and the message that poor behavior on the roads is socially unacceptable then deaths will decrease.
There will always be tragic accidents, we never seem to learn from our mistakes.
mike68:
The way I see it the biggest problem is the lack of policing of our roads and derisory fines and penalties handed out, 3 points and £60 for using a mobile is a joke once the deterrent becomes big enough and the message that poor behavior on the roads is socially unacceptable then deaths will decrease.
There will always be tragic accidents, we never seem to learn from our mistakes.
i had a speed awareness course the other day and they gave quite a worrying statistic that 1700 odd people died last year but 23,000 odd we’re seriously injured which could be from breaking your arm to being paralyzed
When i started driving the cops were visible ,on the motorway pulins they have early in a morning also locally late at night parked in town or near junctions ,now I never really see them anywhere ,I can see why driving standards are so low as more people push there luck and get away with it ,the standards just get lower as there is little chance of getting court .
Why blame the drivers ,it’s the firms fault with there push,push attitude that needs looking at.
Zb hell you tell them you’ve done 3x15 and you’ve none left and they look at you as if you’re some bone idle ■■■■ without a minutes worth of work in you,then plan you the next day for a 16 hr day .
There is always one ain’t there Nick2008. The post you pulled said that every driver who was not from these shores should take a new test. Well ex pal I know one Dutch female driver who has passed more tests including the Drivers Diploma which includes a 300m blind side reverse than you have ever dreamed of. Byn the way what happened to the prestige Parkers job?? Did you mention VOSA once to oftem
Gunner Til I Die:
There is always one ain’t there Nick2008. The post you pulled said that every driver who was not from these shores should take a new test. Well ex pal I know one Dutch female driver who has passed more tests including the Drivers Diploma which includes a 300m blind side reverse than you have ever dreamed of. Byn the way what happened to the prestige Parkers job?? Did you mention VOSA once to oftem
What’s wrong with that? Not only that, everyone should have to pass a test every 5 years.
dozy:
Why blame the drivers ,it’s the firms fault with there push,push attitude that needs looking at.
Zb hell you tell them you’ve done 3x15 and you’ve none left and they look at you as if you’re some bone idle [zb] without a minutes worth of work in you,then plan you the next day for a 16 hr day .
I’m talking Car drivers… in general … as a HGV driver we and any residing driver in the uk will have passed tests and assesments alike which would go towards that…
Not only that, everyone should have to pass a test every 5 years.
That would cure the unemployment situation as well - with something like 23,000 tests per day! - assuming around half the population have driving licences.
Not only that, everyone should have to pass a test every 5 years.
That would cure the unemployment situation as well - with something like 23,000 tests per day! - assuming around half the population have driving licences.
Something along those lines needs to happen though, amazing that you can pass a test in the 1940’s and still be driving on the roads in 2013 without so much as a brush up on the law.
Not only that, everyone should have to pass a test every 5 years.
That would cure the unemployment situation as well - with something like 23,000 tests per day! - assuming around half the population have driving licences.
Something along those lines needs to happen though, amazing that you can pass a test in the 1940’s and still be driving on the roads in 2013 without so much as a brush up on the law.
What’s needed is some kind of driver CPC course for car drivers …
A theory test and and a reaction test could easily be done on computer, although it couldn’t be done from your own pc at home, as that would be open to cheating.
Speed awareness courses, hand eye coordination tests, ‘car driver CPCs’?
Nope.
If a test/extra training were/was to be introduced in the interests in reducing motorway/dual carriageway collisions, it should take the form of a spacial orientation type exercise.
It’s currently a matter of statistics. Out of millions of drivers, there will be some that will simply cause accidents because the part of the brain that makes you a competent driver (regarding your positioning relative to other vehicles and your ability to read the road, and your ability to picture yourself and your car as one molecule making up a large river full of molecules, and how you blend in fluidly) is just not hardwired in that way or has a missing link that most people can awaken when they start taking driving lessons.
Most people just do it, and it comes with experience. But some people simply don’t have it (call it ‘mechanical sympathy’ if you will) and these are the ones that cause hours of delays and hardship for everybody else.
I personally believe that any driver involved in an accident/collision (regardless of whose fault it was) should be subject to an extended medical/psychometric evaluation. If it’s not their fault and they pass, they should be given training on how to better predict and avoid accident situations in the future. If they don’t pass, then it’s goodbye driving licence until they get their second and final attempt at demonstrating this competence. If it is their fault and they pass, they retain their driving licence but cause another accident and it’s goodbye to that licence for good. If it’s their fault and they don’t pass, same as if it isn’t their fault.
I’ve no idea what precise format such a test should take, but I think the process to gain a driving licence these days is too slack. Sure, it’s more difficult than in days gone by, but traffic volume is only going to increase (roughly exponentially), so unless we have ways of screening these people off the roads, there will come a day when the roads will simply be useless for travel.
Just consider how the population is going to increase over the next half century and beyond. And plug in the current accident rates to those figures. The roads are simply becoming too crowded for us to allow these accidents to continue at the current rate.
I was thinking this up during the 3.5 hours between M1 J13 and M25 J11 mid Monday morning.
p.s. Regarding the widening of the M1 that’s taken a few years, it’s only been completely open for a short while and already it seems we are seeing the same volume of traffic per lane as we saw when it was three lanes at the start of the improvement works! It worries me that in a perfect world we should now be considering widening it to five lanes already, in addition to those areas that already are.
- assuming around half the population have driving licences.
once you passed class one, 
when was the last time you read " THE HIGHWAY CODE ? " 