CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!

License to Kill

(11 posts)

  1. Min
    Member

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22257192

    Documentary on BBC3 9pm tonight. They had the woman on the BBC this morning. I rather lost sympathy with her a bit when she started looking for other people to blame for her own actions, but clearly something does need to be done and if you can't trust people to do it themselves then it needs to be done for them. I can't help feeling that if young people are incapable of personal responsibility behind the wheel then perhaps the driving age needs to be raised.

    All the presenters could do was wibble on about how motorway driving should be in the test, ignoring the fact that most of these deaths do not occur on motorways. Typical BBC.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. chdot
    Admin

    "perhaps the driving age needs to be raised"

    From BBC link -

    "
    Road crashes are the biggest killer of 17 to 24-year-olds in the UK and one in five drivers has an accident within five months of passing his/her test.
    "

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. SRD
    Moderator

    see also:

    "Over 8000 UK drivers are still driving despite having 12 or more points on their licence. The top fourteen licence point holders with 25 points or more are all men."

    http://www.iam.org.uk/media-and-research/media-centre/news-archive/20240-male-drivers-fail-to-see-the-point

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    She does seem to have learned, and is trying to raise the profile of something needing to be done, which is all good. Indicative of the BBC, though, is the very opening line:

    "One brief mistake nearly 10 years ago left Sophie Morgan in a wheelchair for the rest of her life."

    It's always couched in language that suggests it's just a 'momentary lapse' which makes it seem like 'just one of those things'. The fact that a mistake is 'brief' has nothing to do with it when you're in control of a car.

    They should also consider, like with motorbikes, having power limits depending on age/experience. Too many kids passing their tests and (especially those with wealthy mummy and daddy) getting some hot hatch or Scooby or whatever. There was a case down south a few years back I'm sure where a 17 year old caused a crash driving a Porsche 911 that his parents had bought him.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. fimm
    Member

    The guy who parked his Audi TT in the side of a house the other week was 22, IIRC. I dread to think what his insurance bill was like. Given that he was reported to have serious head injuries, it may be that he'll never drive anything again...

    I believe the biggest killer of teenage girls in this country is thier boyfriends. Not through violence, but in cars. (I'm sorry, this is a vaguely remembered statistic, I don't have a link and it may not be quite right).

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. DaveC
    Member

    WC posted ""One brief mistake nearly 10 years ago left Sophie Morgan in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.""

    I'd beg to differ on the beeb's ??? point. I would hazard a guess that some people make lots of mistakes but at some point they don't get away with harming anyone!

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. neddie
    Member

    Everyone makes mistakes when driving, every day.

    The point is you have to build in a lot of margin for error into your driving style, so that a mistake or misjudgement does not turn into a crash.

    You also have to hope that everyone else has included the same margin.

    I suspect many younger drivers allow less margin (as they feel fully in control) as well as their hazard awareness being lower.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  8. Snowy
    Member

    From the IAM link

    "The relative few who collect 12 points in a fairly short period of time must be either ignorant or contemptuous of the rules of the road. They are getting away with it because the courts seem unwilling to play the disqualification cards they hold. There may even be a case for making serial point scorers re-sit the theory and practical driving test before their licence is reinstated."

    This logic seems to suggest that re-sitting the test is a worse punishment than being disqualified...!

    Personally I'd make a resit of the driving test compulsory for every three points gained on the licence. And not allowed to drive until it's done.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  9. cc
    Member

    Once again a big part of the solution is to redesign the roads so that they guide road users into good behaviour and into safe situations. This is what's done in the N*th*rl*nds and it works.

    Better driver training would work wonders as well though I dare say. And a smarter economy in which people weren't under so much pressure to work work work and commute commute commute and drive drive drive just to exist.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  10. Smudge
    Member

    Watching this now, as depressing as I expected.
    The thought of my young lad going out on the road really scares the heck out of me :-(

    Posted 12 years ago #

  11. Min
    Member

    Maybe (hopefully) things will have changed by then?

    Having posted this, I forgot to watch it.

    Posted 12 years ago #

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