Pensioner mandatory driving test

overlord2

Retest everyone every 10 years minimum.

I cant understand why the government dont introduce this system. Better drivers, less accidents, and more importantly increased revenue through testing taxation, and it would introduce thousands of jobs.

BelgianBeerGeek

Overlord2 wrote:

Retest everyone every 10 years minimum.

I cant understand why the government dont introduce this system. Better drivers, less accidents, and more importantly increased revenue through testing taxation, and it would introduce thousands of jobs.

Hear, hear. I have always wondered why we are not more American in this respect. Every x number of years you apply to your local DMV for a new licence. Which should include a medical and a re-test. Should raise a bit of cash.
Those who need to drive would take on the cost, those who don't might think it's not worth the bother and quit.
And staying on the US theme, carrying your driving licence should be mandatory. If the police ask for it and you don't have one, you're nicked.

southdownswolf

Overlord2 wrote:

Retest everyone every 10 years minimum.

I cant understand why the government dont introduce this system. Better drivers, less accidents, and more importantly increased revenue through testing taxation, and it would introduce thousands of jobs.

I don't think that it would necessarily lead to better drivers or less accidents.

People know what the speed limits are, they also know when they are approaching a static speed camera, does not mean that they drive at below the speed limit for the rest of the time.

rolf_f

Rolf F wrote:

Would cost a fortune - and, as implied, only target one group of potentially problematic drivers. I'd favour something simpler. A mandatory licence renewal every ten years or so, applied for online, which as an application process that forces you to view every page of the highway code and answer a simple question on each page, before you could submit would do wonders (eg I sometimes think that nobody anymore knows what a box junction is and nobody knows that you aren't supposed to park right on junctions etc etc). This would be cheap and at least remind people of their bad habits.

edhornby wrote:

Rolf that is a brilliant solution !

Thank you! Sadly, it falls over on the 'but what about people who don't have computers' issue (plus the little gits finding ways to hack it!). Mind you, if the will was there I'm sure an answer could be found.

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

And staying on the US theme, carrying your driving licence should be mandatory. If the police ask for it and you don't have one, you're nicked.

And what would that achieve? Personally, I am against us introducing obnoxious and pointless dictatorial rules. We hardly want to look to the States for how to define our laws.

Daz555

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

And staying on the US theme, carrying your driving licence should be mandatory. If the police ask for it and you don't have one, you're nicked.

What would be the point? Even if you present your licence to plod, what would it prove? He'd still be doing a real-time/online check to determine if your are licenced and insured to drive even if you had a licence in your pocket.

The physical driving licence itself proves nothing - only the DVLA has the data to know if you are licenced to drive or not - and plod has access to this data when required.

FishFish

brianonyx wrote:

Studies show that coffin dodgers are quite a safe age group for driving and tend to self regulate their driving and restrict to local daylight driving. .

What studies were these? My study is that old people are relatively dangerous drivers.

Daz555

FishFish wrote:

brianonyx wrote:

Studies show that coffin dodgers are quite a safe age group for driving and tend to self regulate their driving and restrict to local daylight driving. .

My study is that old people are relatively dangerous drivers.

The stats say different. I linked to a BBC article about it earlier in the thread.

BelgianBeerGeek

Daz555 wrote:

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

And staying on the US theme, carrying your driving licence should be mandatory. If the police ask for it and you don't have one, you're nicked.

What would be the point? Even if you present your licence to plod, what would it prove? He'd still be doing a real-time/online check to determine if your are licenced and insured to drive even if you had a licence in your pocket.

The physical driving licence itself proves nothing - only the DVLA has the data to know if you are licenced to drive or not - and plod has access to this data when required.

Because there are too many scrotes without one. And when they are stopped currently, they can say stuff like "It's at home, officer, in my safe so I don't lose it" Copper can't do much about it, so scrote drives away. True, the police are able to access data more easily these days, but what if the link to DVLA is down that day? So if the person says "I do not have my licence" the cops would smell a rat straight away. Even if the motorist had his driving licence, the police could/should still check its validity.

Daz555

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

Even if the motorist had his driving licence, the police could/should still check its validity.

Exactly - they just get on the radio and ask for a check of person X - or if they are in a traffic car with all the computer gizmos they just check themselves.

madtam

91yr old father in law mentioned a couple of things last night that worried me. He is still driving and recently got another car which of course he isn't as familiar with. But he mentioned that his reactions are slower and it takes him longer to make decisions and do things these days. He therefore acts appropriately and mostly drives where he knows and at an appropriate speed of 15-20mph.
We briefly mentioned the fact that my son came off his bike recently after being cut up by a bunch of lads in a car that overtook then pulled in front and braked such that he nudged the rear wing before going down. They then drove off no doubt laughing at their prowess. My son is just bruised and grazed but his jacket was badly ripped and therefore Grandma who was an ex textile mender was making repairs to it. My F.I.L. mentioned that in the evening he had noticed that the (fairly bright) red jacket wasn't very visible and that he ought to get one of them bright yellow ones because older people like him can't see things as well as they used to do. He later mentioned that he doesn't wear his glasses when driving as they make him see double when looking at things close up inside the car.
I started to suggest that maybe he should consider giving up the driving but this did not go down too well at all and anyway he drives appropriately (see above) so is fine. I am not sure that the law or the insurance company would entirely agree with that. I know that it is a worry to me but I don't know what I can do as I suppose unless he has an accident he isn't actually doing anything wrong.

random man

madtam wrote:

91yr old father in law mentioned a couple of things last night that worried me. He is still driving and recently got another car which of course he isn't as familiar with. But he mentioned that his reactions are slower and it takes him longer to make decisions and do things these days. He therefore acts appropriately and mostly drives where he knows and at an appropriate speed of 15-20mph.
We briefly mentioned the fact that my son came off his bike recently after being cut up by a bunch of lads in a car that overtook then pulled in front and braked such that he nudged the rear wing before going down. They then drove off no doubt laughing at their prowess. My son is just bruised and grazed but his jacket was badly ripped and therefore Grandma who was an ex textile mender was making repairs to it. My F.I.L. mentioned that in the evening he had noticed that the (fairly bright) red jacket wasn't very visible and that he ought to get one of them bright yellow ones because older people like him can't see things as well as they used to do. He later mentioned that he doesn't wear his glasses when driving as they make him see double when looking at things close up inside the car.
I started to suggest that maybe he should consider giving up the driving but this did not go down too well at all and anyway he drives appropriately (see above) so is fine. I am not sure that the law or the insurance company would entirely agree with that. I know that it is a worry to me but I don't know what I can do as I suppose unless he has an accident he isn't actually doing anything wrong.

I'm not sure he isn't doing anything wrong. There's a whole list of medical conditions you should inform DVLA about and reduced visual acuity is one of them: https://www.gov.uk/reduced-visual-acuity-and-driving