Mandatory Driving Test

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mk1_salami

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mk1_salami

I see so many people that are completely clueless on the road. From simple lane selection on roundabouts, to the inability to do basic maneuvers and even basic clutch/throttle control. Would you be in support of a mandatory driving re-test every say ... 10 years? Dropping to 3 years after age 60? If you can't pass a test - you shouldn't be driving! Your car requires an MOT every year to be considered safe, why wouldn't you also check the driver now and again?

Upsides:
Higher driving standards
Get all the idiots off the roads
Increase in jobs for driving instructors/test facilities.

Downsides:
Policy would likely be hugely unpopular with voters, so I can't see any political party actually doing this.
Extra cost for the motorist.
 
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Not sure on ages/frequency but I'd definitely support some kind of re-test requirement. I live in a village that has a pretty old average age, I understand/sympathise with people not wanting to lose their independence... but probably 50% of the people that live around here shouldn't be driving.
 
Additional downside - there's already a significant shortage of examiners leading to months upon months of delays for people waiting for tests already, where do you get the thousands of additional examiners to carry out these retests? What happens if your ten years is up but you haven't managed to book a retest due to backlogs?
 
Yes, maybe make it every 5 years so people stay focused, including taking the theory test. £85 for both of them is nothing in the grand scheme of car ownership and with so much experience to hand it will be a walk in the park... Right?


However, I don't see it happening as car dependency is too baked in to society now.
 
Kenai said:
Additional downside - there's already a significant shortage of examiners leading to months upon months of delays for people waiting for tests already, where do you get the thousands of additional examiners to carry out these retests? What happens if your ten years is up but you haven't managed to book a retest due to backlogs?
Click to expand...
Start a bicycle business!
 
I'm not entirely sure my job would be happy me not turning up for X number of weeks or months due to failing a retest.
And I certainly wouldn't be walking home 14 miles at 6am after a 12 hour shift.
 
marinersfan said:
I'm not entirely sure my job would be happy me not turning up for X number of weeks or months due to failing a retest.
And I certainly wouldn't be walking home 14 miles at 6am after a 12 hour shift.
Click to expand...
But if you fail... you shouldn't be driving?

You could do it like an MOT. If you fail, you have a grace period to re-test where you could still drive for x amount of days / weeks.
 
Every speeding offence could be instantly addressable if black boxes became mandatory and its data collection could be expanded to almost everything else that would fail a driving test...

How keen are you to be sure people are always driving to test standards.
 
Hotwired said:
Every speeding offence could be instantly addressable if black boxes became mandatory and its data collection could be expanded to almost everything else that would fail a driving test...

How keen are you to be sure people are always driving to test standards.
Click to expand...
I'm no fan of nanny state devices, but why would anyone be against making sure people have the skills to drive to a certain standard? Besides the fear of not meeting that standard, I can't think of any?
 
Hotwired said:
Every speeding offence could be instantly addressable if black boxes became mandatory and its data collection could be expanded to almost everything else that would fail a driving test...

How keen are you to be sure people are always driving to test standards.
Click to expand...

Where does OP talk about speeding?


Point of this thread, I think, is to highlight that there are individuals on the road who are not competent enough to be sharing the road with other people.


In many industries it’s commonplace to regularly retest to ensure your knowledge and know how is up to date. Why should the motoring industry, where the general public are in charge of very quick and very massive vehicles capable of killing others or causing significant damage, be any different?
 
mk1_salami said:
I'm no fan of nanny state devices, but why would anyone be against making sure people have the skills to drive to a certain standard? Besides the fear of not meeting that standard, I can't think of any?
Click to expand...

I suppose the question is really how much bad driving is actually due to incompetence that would be eliminated by routine testing and how much is actually just because people don't give a **** and choose to drive like *********?

Personally, I don't encounter all that many people that I think are genuinely incompetent compared to people that appear to be choosing to drive like knobs - overtaking into oncoming traffic, not giving way at traffic calming, wrong-laning roundabouts to skip queues etc.
 
mk1_salami said:
I see so many people that are completely clueless on the road. From simple lane selection on roundabouts, to the inability to do basic maneuvers and even basic clutch/throttle control. Would you be in support of a mandatory driving re-test every say ... 10 years? Dropping to 3 years after age 60? If you can't pass a test - you shouldn't be driving! Your car requires an MOT every year to be considered safe, why wouldn't you also check the driver now and again?

Upsides:
Higher driving standards
Get all the idiots off the roads
Increase in jobs for driving instructors/test facilities.

Downsides:
Policy would likely be hugely unpopular with voters, so I can't see any political party actually doing this.
Extra cost for the motorist.
Click to expand...
I also live in Fife and commute 5 days a week into Edinburgh, so I do feel your pain. :p

I do feel like some kind of brushing up on driving skills is needed, both on the practical side and theory side. How we do this though to make it work, I'm not sure.
 
mk1_salami said:
I'm no fan of nanny state devices, but why would anyone be against making sure people have the skills to drive to a certain standard? Besides the fear of not meeting that standard, I can't think of any?
Click to expand...

You vaguely say you're not a fan of very easily implemented monitoring and then say you don't see why anyone would be against making sure people drive to a certain standard.

Apparently you can think of reasons.

And this is my solution to your problem, black boxes, permanent monitoring. Much easier and more accurate than trying to get tens of millions of drivers retested every X years.

MrRockliffe said:
Hotwired said:
Every speeding offence could be instantly addressable if black boxes became mandatory and its data collection could be expanded to almost everything else that would fail a driving test...

How keen are you to be sure people are always driving to test standards.
Click to expand...
Where does OP talk about speeding?


Point of this thread, I think, is to highlight that there are individuals on the road who are not competent enough to be sharing the road with other people.


In many industries it’s commonplace to regularly retest to ensure your knowledge and know how is up to date. Why should the motoring industry, where the general public are in charge of very quick and very massive vehicles capable of killing others or causing significant damage, be any different?
Click to expand...
Read the entire sentence to understand how I say current black boxing could be expanded to fulfil the aim of the OP without the use of more tests.
 
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