Mandatory Driving Test

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Hagar said:
In my life I worked on the M65, M40, M602, M60, M62, M5 widening, many A roads and dual carriageways, but those days of building have long gone
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Can you get on the A1 viaduct repairs at wentbridge. Every time I go through there no one is working on it. It got delayed till spring 2024 last summer and I will bet my house it will get delayed even further. Got to milk the tax payer!
 
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We don't need retests, we need an entire culture change regarding driving. From the moment someone steps in a car for their first lesson, they're not being taught how to drive, they're being taught how to pass a test. Due to this we have roads full of clueless people who don't see the cluelessness around them as they're part of the problem. So there's no shame, no embarrassment, no consequence at all. People just bimbling along in their own metal bubbles with absolutely zero concept of the world happening around them. Most of these people are only alive because of the alertness of others. Now add in cars which are extremely safe and nobody fears accidents anymore. To add another layer on top, people who used to be scared of cars because they are oily, dangerous, unreliable coffins on wheels have now been presented Teslas. Perfectly safe cars with no oily bits which simply turn on every day and will actively avoid accidents for you. Again, adding to the zombie drivers we seem to be suffering at the moment.

I actually pulled up next to a lady at some lights recently, she had her wing mirrors folded in. So I unfolded them for her and asked her to use them and she just sat there looking at me like I'd opened a portal to another dimension. It honestly beggars belief how these people are still alive, and yet here they are, operating 2 tonne metal boxes at motorway speeds like it ain't no thang.
 
sigma said:
What cost though? Build or maintaining?
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Build. Its very difficult since its average.
But then loads of extra roads all over would end up, or should, as average anyway.

rypt said:
Highway Agency says it's £30mio per mile ... which still crazy, because in Europe it costs €18mio per mile (£15.5mio per mile)

How can it cost twice as much in UK as in Finland to build 1 mile of motorway?

Source for EU pricing here calculated from here:
vayla.fi

E18 Hamina-Vaalimaa - Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency

vayla.fi vayla.fi
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If your going to google the cost at least check when that relates to. £30m was 2011!

The UK is expensive. land is expensive, multiple planning sessions then rejections then court cases etc. Almost every time.

Comparing to other countries is dumb.

I am starting to think your just trolling.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Build. Its very difficult since its average.
But then loads of extra roads all over would end up, or should, as average anyway.



If your going to google the cost at least check when that relates to. £30m was 2011!

The UK is expensive. land is expensive, multiple planning sessions then rejections then court cases etc. Almost every time.

Comparing to other countries is dumb.

I am starting to think your just trolling.
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I'm comparing it to another equally highly developed western country (Finland), with a terrain and climate that is probably more challenging than ours.
 
Its only going to get worse, a friend runs a driving school and his auto car is far more popular, 3:1 ratio, new auto drivers leave a lot to be desired. New cars with auto everything will also make things worse, we are fighting a losing battle.

My mother passed her test 1st time back in the 90's, she still cant park to save her life, shes never been on the motorway by herself. But shes never had a crash and has never had any points so she thinks shes a brilliant driver.
 
Well, they 'found' £98 billion for HS2. That is a lot of motorway @ £30m a mile (3,200 miles of motorway), or the entire M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M8, M25 with a few hundred miles to spare.

Anyway, it's pie in the sky. Never gonna happen.
 
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rypt said:
I'm comparing it to another equally highly developed western country (Finland), with a terrain and climate that is probably more challenging than ours.
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Its basically impossible to compare within the UK let alone to another country.
The significant costs of UK infrastructure are often not the direct costs themselves but interaction with everything else.
Eg build a new road, how many intersections need adding via modifications to other roads. Implications to rail links, utilities (eg pylons), various other crossings, such as new footbridges etc
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Its basically impossible to compare within the UK let alone to another country.
The significant costs of UK infrastructure are often not the direct costs themselves but interaction with everything else.
Eg build a new road, how many intersections need adding via modifications to other roads. Implications to rail links, utilities (eg pylons), various other crossings, such as new footbridges etc
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My Finland example included >2 bridges per mile, 20 years of maintenance, 1 junction every 4 miles, and other pedestrian improvements
 
Tinders said:
Its only going to get worse, a friend runs a driving school and his auto car is far more popular, 3:1 ratio, new auto drivers leave a lot to be desired. New cars with auto everything will also make things worse, we are fighting a losing battle.

My mother passed her test 1st time back in the 90's, she still cant park to save her life, shes never been on the motorway by herself. But shes never had a crash and has never had any points so she thinks shes a brilliant driver.
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Exactly on paper your mother is a model citizen and an exemplary driver but if the world came to an end and I needed a driver I am asking the Amazon driver in the battered up sprinter even though he most likely had 6-7 incidents in the past year.
 
The golden days of driving are almost certainly over. Driving on uncongested or much less congested roads, driving whilst not being distracted by excessive signage, driving whilst not being monitored by roadside cameras.

Being able to drive from Southampton to Aberdeen and nobody could trace your route. Where the roads were clear and conditions allowed you could easily maintain a steady 90mph and it was very unlikely that you would be pulled over.

Even driving through major cities was less of a chore with roads outside the rush hours navigable at more than ten miles an hour.
 
Hotwired said:
I reckon you'd find out what problems are not fixed by more driving tests. At significant cost and inconvenience.
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This.

If people are having to do a test, they'll pay more attention for the short time they're doing it, and make every effort to make sure they pass, just to go back to their old ways the second they leave from the test center.
 
Signage has definitely got stupid. So had street clutter in towns.

"Traffic calming " crap is also dumb. Just creates choke points for no reason. Doesn't stop people speeding
 
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My pet hate… the car in front is turning right at a T Junction. Instead of sitting to the right of the lane they still hog the middle preventing anyone from turning left
 
Nasher said:
Doesn't stop people speeding
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It can be dangerous at night sometimes - I'll get boy racer types coming the other way just hooning it through traffic calming and/or where people have parked on the road reducing visibility, etc. without a care :( meanwhile during the day people often can't go that fast due to other traffic anyhow.
 
Tinders said:
Its only going to get worse, a friend runs a driving school and his auto car is far more popular, 3:1 ratio, new auto drivers leave a lot to be desired. New cars with auto everything will also make things worse, we are fighting a losing battle.

My mother passed her test 1st time back in the 90's, she still cant park to save her life, shes never been on the motorway by herself. But shes never had a crash and has never had any points so she thinks shes a brilliant driver.
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Never had a crash, always see them in the rear view :cry: . I assume the cost per mile is for both sides rather than 1 (although still seems mega expensive). I do think HS2 would have been better spent on something useful like the roads.
 
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