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new driving proposals
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6904821.stm
Can here Radio 1 discussing it in the backgorund, just wondered what everybody thought.
Personally, I am open to the test age being raised to 18 and to there being a miniumum number of lessons, but the banning drivers from carrying passengers aged between 10 and 20 from 11pm to 5am for a year is crazy. It's not practical. And I thought the government was encouraging car sharing?
"Government figures show that one-third of road deaths involve a car driven by a person aged between 17 and 25, although this group accounts for just one in eight licence-holders." This is quite shocking though. I'm glad they're doing something, but I can't agree with all of it.
Can here Radio 1 discussing it in the backgorund, just wondered what everybody thought.
Personally, I am open to the test age being raised to 18 and to there being a miniumum number of lessons, but the banning drivers from carrying passengers aged between 10 and 20 from 11pm to 5am for a year is crazy. It's not practical. And I thought the government was encouraging car sharing?
"Government figures show that one-third of road deaths involve a car driven by a person aged between 17 and 25, although this group accounts for just one in eight licence-holders." This is quite shocking though. I'm glad they're doing something, but I can't agree with all of it.
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It'll just mean more kids on low cc bikes - which are far more dangerous.
Yeah definitely, it's just not fair on those who aren't pricks and drive safely.
Personally I think much higher fines, massive CS orders and confiscating vehicles of all those prats who drive without tax/insurance/licenses would do a good job too though.
Imagine how many people who arent so responsible or mature enough, that continue to be idiots with their cars?
Im involved with a cruising forum, and we used to meet regular in a retail car park, but it was the young (probably uninsured) idiots, unassociated with the group, that came in and did 'burn-outs' and 'doughnuts' that had the carpark closed to all public after a certain time. Nice.
I think the passing of the test for a licence should be harder, and re-assessed say, 2 years after youve first done it, and especially for people of pensionable age - as they can be just as bad! lol
People form bad habits after recieving their licence, and if you think you are such a good driver, then you wouldnt complain to having a resit to prove that fact.
We do that already, and it's having a huge impact. I've seized 14 vehicles for no tax and 2 for no licence in only a few months and I work in a "quiet" rural area. The numbers in the cities are far higher so i've heard.
I think there does need to be some amendment in the law, I certainly agree with raising the age, however I think it also needs to be raised for mopeds as well, they cause far more problems, being used by immature idiots to whizz up and down pavements e.t.c.
As for alcohol, as most young drivers aren't even old enugh to drink it's not really that much of a problem. A far better idea would be to prevent people from owning a vehicle with anything more than a 1100cc engine for at least 1 year after their test, although this would have to be checked up on by the DVLA. There are talks of sorting out the registration problems with cars, matching them up electronically with your driver's licence so that would be quite easy to police.
I'm also in favour of making tests harder, a fuller assessment of driving abilities on a greater variety of roads and a much lower allowance for minors. If you make that many slight mistakes when you're doing your utmost best for an exam then it's no surprise they do daft things unsupervised.
Pain/Gain ratio needs to be applied. Like it should have been for speed cameras which have had little or no impact on the numder of deaths on the road...
A compulsory refresher course two or three years after you've passed, and another one when you hit old age sounds about right.
Limiting anything after you've passed your test, imo, is a breach of free will. Surely passing your test means you're qualified to drive at night, with passengers?! If that's not the case, then what on earth is the driving test for?
The ramifications of failing another test 2-3 years after passing the original test could be horrendous - people need their cars to get to work, to live their lives.... what happens if they fail their test after 3 yrs of being a driver, or car owner? Their lives will be ruined.
Urgh, I don't like these new proposals at all.
ETA: a compulsory refresher course after two years might be a better idea.
And so would I.
Pfftt, stupid rules
It won't be that bad... (and I know that because I'm not allowed to drive, ever)
But surely if the lessons are spread over a year, then wouldn't it mean that you could practise certain things a little bit more that you're not that good at?
Indeed.
Before taking the test, I had driven in very poor weather conditions, including heavy rain and when the roads were icy. However, I had not driven at night. It was quite a learning curve doing that for the first time last week.
However, we must be very careful about this. Learning to drive, and then driving a car is horrendously expensive, as I am discovering. My driving instructor charged £22 per hour. I've tallied it up and I crammed in about 80 hours of driving lessons into three months. It was horrifically expensive - without help from my dad, I would never have been able to afford it. Once you have passed your tests, (theory costs £21, practical cost about £50, and these prices are going up in September!) you have to buy a car, pay road tax for it, get it insured, and then pay for the fuel. It adds up to thousands of pounds. If we make driving even more expensive, it's just going to mean even more people driving uninsured, untaxed, unsafe cars because they can't afford to go legit.
The only practice i can get is my lessons. My mum can't take me out because it's a huge family car that's too big for me to drive. I do actually have a car ready and waiting but my dad won't take me out driving in it.
No alchohol for "new drivers" in the first year - ridiculous. The message from that is that some alchohol becomes just fine and dandy on day 366, or 367 after a leap year. This entirely contradicts the overarching drink-drive ideals. Drink should be either banned across the board completely (yes please) or the laws just left as is.
No passengers between 10-20 "late at night". Hmm. Aside from the obvious enforcement question, given the lack of traffic cops and the fabulous success we can all see from the "no mobiles whilst driving" laws [sigh] how would this even work in practice? Clearly this is aimed and getting boy-racers to stop dicking about with their mates late at night, but the vague idea would also be applicable to a 30something mum with taking their kid home. Which one of those will get stopped? They would both be breaking that law.
The worst thing about it though is that is assumes that all new drivers have the faults of the few. I would venture that a good proportion of drivers in their first year are perfectly capable of carrying passengers, but because some pea-brained idiots drag down the demographic everyone gets the usefulness of their vehicle limited.
Better would be limiting the power of cars for newer drivers.
the zero alcohol limit for 1st few years of a driving license is good as it puts you into a good habit