Improving driving standards
While the standard of driving in the UK is better than I have seen in Southern Europe and Africa, lives could still be saved on our roads by improving the general standard of driving.
Progress has been made in curbing drinking and driving by a combination of:
- Legislation and policing
- Public access to breath test kits
- Making drinking and driving socially unacceptable through avertising campaigns
Progress has been made in curbing speeding by a combination of:
- Legislation and policing
- Making speeding socially unacceptable through avertising campaigns
There are still many deaths caused by neither drinking nor speed. Some can never be eliminated e.g.
- Driving inexperience
- Driver distraction
- Tyre blowouts
- Debris on the road
Other deaths are down to habitually poor driving. Currently drivers only have to pass a driving test to get their licence. They are then free to forget how to drive safely and acquire many dangerous driving habits, most of which will never be challenged until they result in an accident. When some drivers narrowly avoid an accident they ask themselves if they were at fault and if they can learn something from it to avoid a similar incident in the furute. Alas, other drivers assume they always blameless and learn nothing.
I frequently see drivers who:
- Do not indicate which makes them unpredictable and hazardous
- Follow much too close to the car in front
- Continually break and accelerate even though car in front is at a steady speed
- Leave fogs lights on when there is no fog which masks their break lights
- Bully their way past cars instead of filtering when they should
- Carve up drivers on roundabouts
- Approching blind bends too fast
- Overtake approaching blind bends
- Overtake approaching the brow of hill
- Drive too fast in car parks
These drivers are only saved from the consequences of their incompetence by the quick reactions of other drivers. I believe these drivers should be identified and re-educated so they can improve or if they fail to improve be banned from the road until they do. One way to do this would be to inroduce a five-yearly driver safety test as follows:
- All driver are tested every 5 years
- The first is free
- Retests are charged to cover the cost of the whole program
- The test should include where practicable:
- Urban roads
- 60 mph country roads (see note below)
- 70 dual carriage ways or motorways (see note below)
- A variety of roundabout sizes
- A car park
- Drivers who fail may to continue drive for up to 12 months while retrying
- Drivers who can't pass a test within 12 months of failing will be banned until they pass
- Drivers may take the test in their own cars
- Passing the test in an automatic does not remove their manual licence
Note: some drivers only make local journeys and never use fast main roads, dual carriageways or motorways. It would be wrong to judge these drivers as unsafe because they lack experience and confidence on types of road they never use. These roads should be optional except for drivers whose work icnludes long distance drives.
Benefits of the scheme
- Lives will be saved
- The scheme costs the tax payer nothing
- It provides work for additional driving instructors and examiners
- It does not descriminate against older drivers
- It allows for drivers who only use local roads
- Good drivers pay nothing
- The worse drivers pay the most
- The worst drivers will be taken off the road for a while
Limitations
Drivers could be divided into these groups:
- 1) Those who pass because they habitually drive well
- 2) Those who pass they know their unsafe habits, but drive safely for the test
- 3) Those who do not even know how bad their driving is and drive unsafely even they try their best
While it would be desirable to improve driving of both the second and third groups, only the last group will receive the instruction they need. Doubtless there will be those who revert to their bad habits again as soon as they pass a retest, but it is reasonable to hope that at least some will drive more safely, if the risks posed to others by their bad habits is explained. Perhaps most siginificantly, the worst drivers who repeatedly fail a the safety test will be removed from our roads, at least for a while.
I depend on my car to get to work, do shopping and many other journeys. I am willing to have my driving tested for safety. I wonder if the MPs who would have to vote for the scheme have the same confidence.