Up the age??

exchangeandmart

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It has been announced that younger drivers are much more likely to be distracted behind the wheel I heard on the radio the other day that the age for driving a HGV is to be reduced, but given this evidence I am not to convinced. Do you think we should in fact raise the legal driving age? I have to admit that I passed my test aged 17 (i could not wait to get on the roads) however looking back, I am not totally convinced i was ready. On the other hand, by interfering more, do you think we would be entering even more of a nanny state?
 

roadhog

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Leave the age alone and up the minimum requirements for passing the test. Even many moons ago when I took mine in the Fatherland you couldn't just rock up with your L plates and take the test, you had to have been through a driving school with minimum practice requirements laid out by law. From memory, 10 theory lessons and a test before you were even allowed behind the wheel, then a minimum of 5 practical lessons in town traffic and 1 each at night, across country and M-way. I believe they've since increased that.
Of course, having been driving since I was 14 helped me no end .... :lol:
 

LSD

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NO! Absolutley no.

If younger people are so easily distracted, then what the hell are they doing fighting a "war" with weapons for the Illuminati in Afghanistan?

Is there ever a week goes by without yet someone else (in the form of a framed group/category of people) being subtly berated by bullsh*t "research" or "findings", leading to "calls" for "action"?

There are never any genuine attempts to improve anything as alluded to by roadhog. I wonder why?

Everything we ever had is being systematically stolen away...
 

ncooper

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Leave the age alone and up the minimum requirements for passing the test. Even many moons ago when I took mine in the Fatherland you couldn't just rock up with your L plates and take the test, you had to have been through a driving school with minimum practice requirements laid out by law. From memory, 10 theory lessons and a test before you were even allowed behind the wheel, then a minimum of 5 practical lessons in town traffic and 1 each at night, across country and M-way. I believe they've since increased that.
Of course, having been driving since I was 14 helped me no end .... :lol:

Would that we had this kind of driver training.
Ludicrous amounts of money are being squandered on orange paint,white lines,20 mph speed limits,extra lanes on motorways,speed cameras etc,etc
when the main problem,driver incompetence,is being totally ignored.

The English driving test merely assesses whether the candidate can operate the vehicle and negociate a short course successfully.
In the event of a pass,the new licence holder then has to learn to drive on their own.
A huge number never seem to acquire any new skills,I see evidence of this every day.

Far too many exhibit an inability to read the road ahead at all,resulting in constant changes in speed,failure to execute safe overtaking when the opportunity is there,failure to successfully match the speed of traffic on a dual carriageway slip road,causing other motorists to take evasive action when the main carriageway is reached,etc,etc

Motorway driving requires a totally different manner of driving,yet for reasons I have never understood,learner drivers are not allowed on motorways.
No surprise then,that so few drivers can actually drive properly on them.

Virtually no cars use the nearside lane,most evident at weekends when there are few lorries and the nearside lane is still empty.Why?
(This effectively reduces the motorway to two lanes and causes unnecessary queues.)
At quiet times,I can regularly see drivers in the fourth lane of the recently widened M1 on an otherwise empty road,why?
I see cars being driven only a few feet apart at high speed,madness,if the drivers only thought about what they are doing.Why don't they?
Who,on a single carriageway road,would happily take three miles to overtake another vehicle,a practice apparently deemed normal on a motorway.Why?

The answer to all these questions is because no one has ever taught them any different,how could the authorities miss something so glaringly obvious?

I have taken and failed one driving test.
I have also taken and passed a total of six,three of them at the Home Office driving school at Preston(Lancashire) in 1987.
I thought I knew how to drive when I went there and soon found out I wasn't very good at all.All of what I learnt there has stood me in good stead and I try to practice it today.
I wouldn't for a moment expect the government to enforce that standard of training on the general motorist but the present standard of driver training and the driving test are totally inadequate.
The resulting poor standard of driving causes virtually all our road accidents and contributes greatly to the congestion on our roads.

Rant over,apologies.

Regards,
Nick.
 

Alex M Grieve

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The unvarnished truth

Hi Nick,

Your post above (#4) is absolutely excellent and gets right to the heart of the matter.

It is no exaggeration to say:

"The resulting poor standard of driving causes virtually all our road accidents and contributes greatly to the congestion on our roads."

If the Forum ever considers writing to the Secretary of State for Transport on this subject, we would do well to adopt your letter as our collective view! Well done.
 

st4

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Yes, its not the age but the complete lack of preparation youngsters have before being able to drive alone. The DSA test isn't that exacting....

I recall a girl at work telling me that she was learning to drive and was test ready. I asked her how she felt about driving alone and to work, and how many hours of lessons she took and driving in her spare time. She told me she has needed more time than most with a "staggering" 40hrs worth of lessons which @ £24/hr she didn't want anymore. She passed, and she said she felt she was experienced at driving. :shock:

I likened 40hrs of driving to two tankfuls of fuel in my car, or 3 weeks commuting with a jolly at the weekend. Not so experienced really - especially as she had never ventured to Glasgow from Helensburgh with L plates and had been on the dual carriageway probably 10 times.

So the young are woefully underprepared, undertrained, yet pay through the nose for this. I was blessed with a father that would take me out for whole day driving sessions in Scotland to get me used to driving. And that didn't prepare me for the M8 rush hour.

Driving is an intergal part of modern life, its something that youngsters should get more of, younger. Driving days (like MBworlds one), maybe lessons in school (they teach them shi** anyway).
 

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couldnt agree more. i started driving when i was 10. i had access to scrap cars and a large private area to mess around in. not driving test style, but taught me some of the basics in car control. when i turned 17 my dad used to take me out driving. i had been learning for a few months (saving up for professional lessons as dad couldnt get me to test standard) and a 200 MILE trip was done. in my old metro, me driving. all kinds of road except motorways. i went out lots in the dark (i learned in winter) bad weather, the lot. thats whats lacking now. people are taught to pass the test. not to drive! between them, police and driving instructors are among the worst drivers i see, that arent new qualified drivers!
 

Alex M Grieve

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Realistically

giving people a good slice of supervised experience whilst they learn to drive takes patience, imagination and time. I don't see the DoT coming up with any of these - except they can of course protract the time spent as a learner but they do nothing to address the excellent points made above, or to address "attitude and manner" - driver behaviour.

I taught wife and both children - all passed without difficulties.

During their preparation, and before the test, exercises included driving at the national peed limit on all types of road, and maintaining that speed. Observation, anticipation, precaution were all instilled by continuous dialogue. I then had them overtaking on A roads at speeds which would probably make real driving instructors blanch. They did it confidently and correctly. I did it because I new it was one of the first things they would attempt once they were allowed to fly solo.

When they passed their test, the first thing we did to celebrate was to go for a supervised drive on the M3 including: joining the motorway safely (merge at 90, then speed up), observation, lane usage. They each said that the difference in increased speed and reduced thinking time was a step change from even their quickest journeys off motorway.

And the results - wife passed test in 1971 and has not had a collision. Son passed test in 1989 and has not had a collision. Daughter passed in 1983 and has had a couple of minor dents. The family average is therefore somewhere off the bottom end of the national scale for driving problems.
 

coxyhog

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I think statistics point to young men being the most at risk group of having an accident.I can say this from experience as I wrote my first car off two weeks after passing my test(in 1972),then a year later wrote off my second car(a few weeks after buying it).
Not sure what the remedy is but in the States don't they learn to drive at school?
 
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exchangeandmart

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thanks for all the feedback, really interesting thoughts here
 

turbopete

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problem is in part due to the amount of money at young drivers' disposal now. when i learned in 1992 all we could afford was a 950 fiesta, 1000cc metro etc. now they have pug 106 GTI's, vauxhall corsa's with 2 litre twin cam engines from cavaliers fitted, sometimes even calibra turbo engines! in a corsa! often not declared to dvla or insurance! then theres the body and suspension mods, huge wheels etc so the car is badly set up as it has too much camber, is dangerously close to the ground (theres a lot round here cant get over a speed bump) and has too much power for the chassis and the driver to cope with! in new zeland your car must be a minimum of 100mm from the ground or its deemed unfit for the road. in parts of europe, wheels and tyres must be type approved for the car, which means anything outside of manufacturers sizes is illegal, i believe. you can put bigger wheels on but they must be of a size that the manufacturer fits to the model eg putting W210 E55 AMG wheels on a W210 E300 Turbodiesel. to cut disasters for young drivers we need to adopt something similar to prevent them driving over powered, badly set up and in my view, dangerous cars, at least till they have enough experience and skill to realise their car is badly set up etc. those of us here that are lucky enough to have performance versions of saloons or just out and out high performance cars, im sure didnt have anything like these cars when they first learned to drive. i wonder how many had minis, austin a30/a35s, and other such painfully slow stuff down the years as first cars, but have real flying machines now? trouble is, the young drivers have the money now, so they want to run before theyre able to walk!
 

manny

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young drivers are great i am 24 and got a c 230 komp i dont want a 106 gti :lol::lol::lol:
 

roadhog

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TP, even a 950 Fiesta is enough to get you into trouble if you don't know how to drive.

manny, 24, in this context, is not that young. By that age statistics show that you're less likely to crash (but not necessarily safer)
 

Cole@MBS

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I had a lancia beta 2ltr twin cam when i was 17!!

Passed my hgv group 1 at 21 in croydon, that afternoon, i had a broken down 24ton 6 wheeler behind a daff 2800 recovery truck, never had a prang, not all young drivers are nutters!

God, that was a few years ago now!!
 

turbopete

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I had a lancia beta 2ltr twin cam when i was 17!!

Passed my hgv group 1 at 21 in croydon, that afternoon, i had a broken down 24ton 6 wheeler behind a daff 2800 recovery truck, never had a prang, not all young drivers are nutters!

God, that was a few years ago now!!

point is that these little pocket rockets they buy now are messed around with and are much faster than their equivalent vehicles from 20 or so years ago. lets face it, according to the official manufacturers performance figures, my E300 turbodiesel is less than a second slower 0-62mph than a sierra cosworth. now who would believe that could be possible in 1985 when the cossie hit the street? they have much more money than we had and dont have to worry about paying insurance etc as many around here at least are on parents insurance, and because they can afford to buy these fancy cars and put bodykits etc on them they feel compelled to make as much noise as possible and drive them as fast as the cars are capable of going. im not saying all young drivers are nutters, and i can only judge the ones i see, and the nutters tend to be the ones with fancy cars coz they have plenty of cash to splash out on them, and girls all round them as the girls round here only want rich guys, so they show off to impress the girls and BANG theyre wrapped round a tree or a lamp post, go home to their parents (if theyre lucky) and get another fancy car and start again! they never learn. they dont need t! i know of a lad now wanting to buy his 1st car. he wants a saxo. not a 1.1 or a diesel, not even a 1.4. it MUST be a 1.6. NOTHING else will do! like i said, learn to walk before you try to run! he's never even had a sit in a drivers seat of a car yet!
 

roadhog

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... and the nutters tend to be the ones with fancy cars coz they have plenty of cash to splash out on them, and girls all round them as the girls round here only want rich guys, so they show off to impress the girls and BANG theyre wrapped round a tree or a lamp post

Darwinism at it's best. :D
 

turbopete

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Sounds like you need to get yourself a Corsa or a Saxo then.... :shock:

haha! no chance! my beast may be temperamental, even refusing to start when switched off when hot for a minimum of 2 hours (till its cool again) but not much leaves it from the lights, espeially if you also want pure comfort and almost 40mpg at 70mph on the motorway! i want a CAR not a plastic turd with 4 huge wheels with black rubber bands around them, (1 at each corner!) to ride around in. and i dont need to make my exhaust loud, then have to get a THUMP THUMP THUMP stereo coz my car is so loud i can no longer hear the radio!
 

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