Young drivers

[Andy87]

Do you think young drivers should be given more guidance before being allowed to drive after passing their test, or do you feel if they have past the test they are good enough to drive carefully without placing other lives at risk?

I was listening to the news a week or so ago and they were discussing possible measures to ensure young and inexperienced drivers were given additional lessons about driving in the dark and poor conditions.

Any thoughts on our current driving test?

 

[television]

Yes Andy, how many new or maybe some old come to that understand shall we say driving in the rain, tyre condition and contact with the road, the point of take off, with no return, many other points too

 

[hairyg]

Not just young drivers but all newly qualified drivers have not had the chance to gain wide experience of all possible road conditions. They are at a natural disadvantage to more experienced drivers in this respect.

If they had to display something like a "P" plate by law this could have two beneficial effects.

It would encourage more experineced drivers to make allowances and it would remind the newly qualified driver that they still had much to learn.

 

[Splatt]

I think it goes deeper than driving skills. The real killer for youngsters and those who fall foul of them is the lack of maturity. OK they are young and have not survived the situations that older drivers have encountered and been tempered by. But they need to have an understanding of the consequences of their actions, that they are not invulnerable and driving like a bat out of hell because you have your mates in the car is fun, but the fun may be for a few minutes and oblivion is for eternity. Trouble is you can`t teach youngsters good sense it has to come with age and the development of responsibility. In the meantime legal restrictions and commercial constraints such as insurance costs are the only means of keeping some control on their excesses.

 

[Geezer]

I don't people should be able to drive until they are 21 and that applies to drinking booze too.

 

[GseRacing]

I don't people should be able to drive until they are 21 and that applies to drinking booze too.

I think your license should be taken away after the age of 50!

The amount of times i have been cut up by a silver wrinse idiot who isnt looking where theyre going and then when we nearly hit its always my fault because im the younger driver!!! im sick of it! i pay masses more insurance than these blind old tw@ts and im the one always copping the blame for near misses because i read the new road lay out painted on to the sodding road and clearly sign posted and they just bimble along throwing their cars into whatever lane they want without looking!

Sorry this is a subject that in an instant makes me very angry. I will never ever dispute young drivers thinking their invincible and racing but i hate it that all government campaigns target the young. when will the blind, deaf and half asleep old driver become the target of police checks?!!!

 

[Splatt]

I did not know that being audio challenged presented a problem with driving , the DVLA do not think so. Perhaps more an annoyance to the young gits who wonder why the older person is not flinching in the blast of their 600 watt sound system.
PS; Drive defensively !! You know it makes sense.

 

[meanie]

Cripes,this ones got a few going hasn't it!!

Fact is,we were all young once & we're all guilty of having driven like pratts at some point in our lives.Times change,and so has the volume of traffic,which along with a general decline in driving standards,means our young really do have their hands full in their efforts to impress us with their extraordinary talents behind the wheel!I can well remember what an awesome wheelman I was at seventeen!!
As they will now be staying on at school a year longer,maybe the age at which they may hold a driving license could go back a year.

But as far as making the training proceedure more rigourous goes,that would be difficult.
Computer simulators are perfectly feasable,but it all has to be paid for.Insisting on more lengthy & involved tuition,ditto.This creates a socio-economic divide,which is not desirable & could result in more scallies not even bothering to take a test at all.

Perhaps,the license could remain provisional for a period subject to random testing,that may at least concentrate their minds for a bit.

As for the rest of us....

 

[Cole@MBS]

I think your license should be taken away after the age of 50!

The amount of times i have been cut up by a silver wrinse idiot who isnt looking where theyre going and then when we nearly hit its always my fault because im the younger driver!!! im sick of it! i pay masses more insurance than these blind old tw@ts and im the one always copping the blame for near misses because i read the new road lay out painted on to the sodding road and clearly sign posted and they just bimble along throwing their cars into whatever lane they want without looking!

Sorry this is a subject that in an instant makes me very angry. I will never ever dispute young drivers thinking their invincible and racing but i hate it that all government campaigns target the young. when will the blind, deaf and half asleep old driver become the target of police checks?!!!

Think that you might have just opened a can of worms there

 

[Cnics]

21?

What utter tripe. If people didn't learn until they were 21 we'd just see the same inexperienced drivers on the road, just the lower age limit would be higher. That and the average 25 year old will have had potentially up to 4 years less experience on the roads.
I agree there is a problem with immaturity and something to deal with that would be good, but doing this isn't the key. People drive irresponsibly at all ages, and i agree that it is very often older drivers than cause issues on the road. It tends to be those that follow the "i've been driving for 50 years so i must be better than you" rule.

There are good drivers aged 17 and good drivers aged 70 and above. There are also bad drivers throughout the age range. There are both good and bad female / male drivers.


From a personal point of view, if i didn't pass until i was 21 i wouldn't have been able to take a career choice and large risk that i did and would be doing something else today 9 til 5 instead of pushing a 6 figure turnover as a sole trader.

 

[meanie]

By the way,I see that this is your first post on the forum.
Judging by the reactions,you seem to have done it with some style,so.....Welcome!!
This one's gonna be fun!

 

[st4]

I can see the argument for raising the age to 21 as the chances are the people behind the wheel would be a bit more mature (but not much). Conversely though they take longer to learn and its never as instinctive as learning when young.

There is a strong argument to lowering the driving age to 14 or 15, like they do in America and New Zealand and actually make "driving" a subject it schools where kids learn basic manouvers and theory of "roadcraft" etc. This would take the novelty factor out of driving so when they were unleashed with a pink licence it would be like passing a GCSE or A Level, not a huge freedom. Also because driving would be borught in so young it would

a) make it more instictive
b) wouldn't be as big an issue
c) be a more mundane activity as it wouldn't be associated with "adulthood" and freedom etc.

Young drivers (and I am one) will take more risks, and are less experienced. There is a girl @ work learning to drive and reckons that she has done about 10hrs lessons and is ready to drive unsupervised. I showed her my MPG readout thing as said "thats half a tank of fuel" and nothing, and she should wait longer.

People pass their tests, but after passing it they are only 40mins more experienced than they were before they had L plates on. More relevant driver training needs done. Skid pans, motorway awareness etc, night time driving, adverse conditions. Then after a 2 year period an optional "big car" test should be done.

 

[roofless]

you could make any change you like to the test but as i remember as soon as i was out of sight of my dad his car got some in every gear & used every drop of his fuel to burn out his tyres then took it back late & hope he would fill it up again the next day ...it's called being young

 

[st4]

you could make any change you like to the test but as i remember as soon as i was out of sight of my dad his car got some in every gear & used every drop of his fuel to burn out his tyres then took it back late & hope he would fill it up again the next day ...it's called being young

My favourite was the "how high can it rev" before it bounces off the limiter. This included all the gears (top speed test of the car). To this day I need to drive a car I own as physically as fast as it can be driven - it feels wasteful not too.

 

[roofless]

My favourite was the "how high can it rev" before it bounces off the limiter. This included all the forward gears and the reverse one (J turns).

happy day's

 

[100%Bitch]

By the way,I see that this is your first post on the forum.
Judging by the reactions,you seem to have done it with some style,so.....Welcome!!
This one's gonna be fun!

Troll ?

 

[PeterCLK]

What's his website link for?

 

[Dale Minton]

Yes Andy, how many new or maybe some old come to that understand shall we say driving in the rain, tyre condition and contact with the road, the point of take off, with no return, many other points too

Hi Senior Member Tele.

This is nothing to do with what you're currently discussing. As a Merc owner
2 x 500E's ('93 models) 500SL (93) SL500 (02) - all now sold - and now currently an SL320 (98) I find this forum very interesting and informative.
I aim this query at you as you seem to know your stuff and I hope you can assist me. The SL320 I now own had at some time in the past a Pioneer Radio/Cassette/CD system installed (the CD is a 6 cartridge in the boot. It's a nice installation but I just hate it when someone pulls out perfectly good original equipment, I like my Merc's as they leave the factory not all ponced up with gear that's not as good as what Merc supplied. I now own an Audio 10 Head unit and 3010 Cartridge unit (optical spec) yet to be installed. All I want to know (and I'm quite happy to hear from anyone who knows) who is a good, genuine and quality audio installer who specializes (or at least has a lot of experience) with audio installations for Mercs - preferably in the London area
Thanks alot
Dale (West London)

 

[carlsson20]

Son number one, passed his test and pass plus at 19 after his test I took him out for around 2 weeks, bought him a ford escort, gave him the key at 9.am he had destroyed the front end in a car park crashing into his mate, car repaired 4 weeks later he crashed trying to do a handbrake turn down a main road ripped the front bumper off and one headlamp, he didn't tell me about this accident until 2 months later, he paid one of his friends to open the body shop where he worked and work through the night to repair it. He sold that a couple of weeks later and bought a new cleo got drunk and put it into a tree. three crashes in 6 months.

Son number two again passed his test and pass plus, again I took him out for a couple of weeks bought him a ford focus tdi 3 days later he wrote it off in the middle of Preston in the dry in broad daylight in front of the police superintendent of preston. He bought a smart car two weeks later turned that over, bought a 318ci BMW 2 weeks later he was sat in it parked at the side of the road, one of his friends came around the corner on the opposite side of the road, lost control hit Bens car and rolled it over, that was written off
As you have maybe read his latest BMW has just been side swiped by a hit and run driver

Kids and cars, what can I say

 

[turnipsock]

I don't think age comes into this much, its experience. A lot of the stuff we learn we do without thinking.

For instance, a new driver on a duel carriageway will not see somebody turning right ahead and will not move to the inside lane in time. Once a bit more experienced, they will see this. When they really have it worked out and see the right hand signal, they look into the other carraigeway and decide if the guy is going to get across and then decide if they have to change lane.

I still see people going at 1mph faster in the outside lane than the people in the middle lane, do these cars have accelerators?