Safe Speed Forums

Do you think if everyone drove to the standards required to pass the DSA Driving Test (or Motorcycle test) - then we'd have a significantly reduced rate of accidents?

Also, do you think that making tailgating an endorseable offence would cut down on the number of people who carry out this dangerous practice?

Finally, I think the penalty for driving without insurance should be raised to:

-Immediate driving ban for 12 months
-Six penalty points to remain on the license for the statutory 3 years after the ban has expired
-£2,000 fine

I think ANPR (tax/insurance) cameras would be far more useful in cutting our accident rate than speed cameras ever could hope to be (obviously the vehicle registration process would need to be re-evaluated to stop people falsely/not registering vehicles)

Comments?

Personally I'd stick a few p on the fuel duty and have basic third party insurance on everyone. A lot don't insure a car because they can't afford to and it is there only way of making a living and getting about. Most of the insurance dodgers have grim lives on council estates and fining them £2k is going to have no impact as they won't have any money, or so little it would take donkeys years to pay back.

If it were me I'd prohibit them from owning a sky dish/ntl/telewest box instead for a time instead. Much more of an effective punishment!

ANPR has led to even more false registration details. I think the DVLA have lost any chance of getting it right again for some time. If we got read of all speed cameras and put 3rd party insurance on fuel then misregistrations would plummet. I also think people are avoiding keeping the DVLA up to date as they're sick of the big brother behaviour of Bliar and his cronies and can see he is trying to remove civil liberties. At the moment it is probably mostly criminals doing the avoidance but I would guess more and more ordinary people who are sick of the govt poking their noses into their private lives are going to choose to have incorrect registration details.

Not necessarily - from memory the driving test isn't actually that good, with very little emphesis on defensive driving. (As I often say, the lessons teach you to pass the test, not to drive properly). I think if we all drove at the standard required to pass an HVG test then it might be a different story... Besides that, testers (when I did my big bike test) often use their own discression when awarding black marks for minor things - I remember that I missed a turn signal on my bike test at a complicated junction. I guess that the tester must have seen my hand move, but I just hadnt quite moved the switch far enough to engage. His comment was 'your bulb must have gone ' and I didn't get a black mark for it.



Yes, but I'm sure that it probably already comes under driving without due care and attention, or wreckless driving. The problem is that the best way to spot a tailgater is with Mk1 eyeball (and associated wage packet) and not a camera. I've been tailgated before on several occasions where the driver just hasn't known better - I think that's probably worse than the aggressive tailgater...



Agreed. Possibly even a short spell in HMP or community service too. Although the debate about having 3rd party insurance included in fuel tax still rumbles on... An interesting point last night. I was watching The Bill (and yes I know its not real ) and a joyrider in a stolen car with no insurance or licence hit and killed a child. The joyrider wasn't speeding or driving dangerously and genuinely wasn't at fault for the accident, as the kid just ran out into the road. The question arose in our house (and much drunken debate insued!) that he should automatically be held responsible for the accident simply because he was driving illegally to start with...any thoughts?



I'm not convinced on this one. I agree that scameras don't cut accidents, but I'm not sure how ANPR would help either. I've known a few people who've run bikes with nothing, registered incorrectly, no licence or anything for the simple fact that they could barely afford to buy the thing and put fuel in, let alone tax and insure it. Generally they go out of their way to avoid getting nicked by not riding like nobheads and not getting into accidents, and by keeping the bike in a safe condition. Dont get me wrong, I understand that alot of 'illegal' cars are in a dangerous condition and can be involved in other crime as well, but I don't know about accident statistics... Paul or anyone else? Are there statistics out there for accident rate / severity against legallity of vehicle?

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Nooope! And technically impossible unless everyone did the driving test again, because the standards were different 20-30 years ago, compared to today - but still, no - simply because the standard required to pass a test is still, in my view, having only passed the test a year ago, still low - because it wasn't until after I had driven 10-15,000 miles in different road conditions and situations, that I felt fully confident - that's 'cos I'm a driving nut, and did 17,000 miles, in and around London, within 6 months of passing - but for the others who do less, the learning curve is not so steep

I agree with your comment on insurance penalties, but only for people who do it deliberately. If, for instance, you needed to drive a car where the driver had fallen ill, or another emergency - it's a different issue

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My friends call me RuFFy

May not be real but similar things have happened in real life. I don't think you can hold a driver responsible for accidents that they happen to get caught up in even if their driving is illegal in an unrelated way. Say a driver is a day late getting their car, which is perfectly roadworthy, MOTd and a pedestrian walks out into the road suddenly. Can you blame the driver for the ill advised actions of the pedestrian? The lack of MOT means they weren't road legal even though it was roadworthy and may also have invalidated the insurance, but neither had anything to do with why the collision occured. The same would apply if the car was nicked, properly uninsured, unregistered, whatever, but still being driven in a responsible manner as in your example from last night's telly. I've got no sympathy for car thieves and I'm all for the courts hammering them for that, but IMO it's an uncomfortably small step from punishing them for a coincidental collision to punishing law abiding motorists also. Nor does it help fulfill the need for all road users to exercise responsibility for their own safety.

My 2p worth.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Only for premeditated offences. It is too easy to commit this kind of offence accidentally at present. For example, L plates falling off a learner's car means they are uninsured. Administrative cock up at work or at the insurance company is another possibility. Once you start setting mandatory penalties, some instances of injustice are guaranteed.

As for the driving test standards, I doubt it would make much difference. When I took the test it seemed more like something you just have to learn how to pass, rather than anything to do with safety.

Yes and no. Clearly it would help if people drove to a higher standard. Correct use of the mirrors, indicating, positioning etc are all things demanded of a driver when taking their driving test and rightly so. What I feel the driving test and learning to drive falls down on is the teaching of advanced hazard perception. However, that's difficult(not saying impossible) until the driver has more expierence, as the best way of learning is by doing. However, it's only when a driver get's thousands of miles under their belt that they can pick up very subtle hazrards and obviously, the more situations you have negotiated the more able you are to draw upon them.

I think the crash rate would go through the roof if we all started driving like newly qualified drivers.

The purpose of the driving test isn't really to create competent drivers - that's a process that takes years. The purpose of the driving test is to ensure a minimum standard of competency required to drive solo. There's so much more to it than driving by the rules. That's why newly qualified drivers have a sky high crash rate...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I'd be interested to see if there are any statistics for crashes for newly qualified drivers within certain age groups:

For example I'd expect the 17-24 year old new driver crash rate to be significantly higher than any other bandings.

There is some reasonable research on this. It was on the DfT web site, but I can't find it presently. The link I have only worked on an earlier version of the site.

As I recall about 60% of the young driver risk comes from inexperience and 40% from youthfullness. Of course all young drivers are inexperienced, while not all inexperienced drivers are young.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Not sure. Look at some of the theory test questions at http://www.dsa.gov.uk/Category.asp?cat=279#

2nd sample question says:

You are in a line of traffic. The driver behind is following very closely. What action should you take?

(a) Ignore the following driver and continue within the speed limit.
(b) Slow down, gradually increasing the gap between you and the driver in front.
(c) Signal left and wave the following driver past.
(d) Move over to a position just left of centre line of the road.

The answer was apparently b. I got this wrong. I usually increase my braking distance to the car in front straight away but maintain a safe speed, waiting for an opportunity to let the tailgater past. Answer (b) seems to suggest creating an even angrier tailgater by slowing down to an inappropriately slow speed and creating an unnecessarily large gap in front.

I think we need to engineer a bit more social value placed on good driving. Hard to do but the essential foundation for 'skilling up' the driving public. Too much stick & not enough carrot with speed cam enforcement. Any behavioural specialist will tell you that punishment is limited as a driver of behavioural change.

There was some person in the local paper letters section claiming that newly qualified drivers were safer than those with experience as they remained within speed limits and drove to the rules It would be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that the guy claiming this was an ex dsa and advanced driving instructor

I did reply pointing out insurance companies really didn't agree. ....

Well it's pretty obvious why insurance companies wouldn't agree, the fortune they make off "young driver"/"inexperienced driver"/"new driver" policies are ridiculous-

Insurance, for the young or new drivers mainly, is becoming more of a deterrant than a satistically proven necessity

The crap against young motorists need to stop, 75% (approx) of accidents still happen outside of the 17-21 brakcet

Young drivers hold x% of licenses but account for x% of accidents
Young drivers x times more likely to crash in first year
Single (likely to be young) are more likely to drive dangerously
Young drivers more likely this, more likely that
Young drivers more surceptible to high-tech distractions (phones etc)
Young drivers more surceptible to crash if a friend is on board

like shut the F up already - it's almost insulting - I'm sure young folks can think of plenty reasons to double the premium of senior/middle aged drivers

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Venting over

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My friends call me RuFFy

You've misinterpreted that, Sam - it just means leave a bigger gap between the yourself and the car infront, to give yourself earlier reaction times, and reduce the likelyhood of the twit behind slamming into you incase you make a sudden stop. A tailgater will do just that, and there is no text book way to get rid of them - so just ignore and focus on your road ahead - your infront, and there isn't jack s**t they can do about it

P.S - Sorry, messed up the edit and did two posts

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My friends call me RuFFy

True, that's a nice but meaningless statistic unless we know how many miles they are doing compared to the rest of the population.

I suspect on average a lot less than drivers in the 30-50 age group, which makes the disparity in accident rates even sharper.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

really? I would have thought the opposite. I drove a hell of a lot more when I was younger. I'd be out all the time 'just for a drive' or whatever. That just doesn't happen now.

But most under-25s aren't petrolheads, and on average they will have much lower rates of both long-distance commuting and business driving than older age groups.

Also a lot of licensed drivers under 25 won't yet even have their own car.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

<--- Complete petrol head and under 25!
I agree that inexperience is a problem, but then so is complacency. I work with a bloke who's just turned 60 and he is one of the worst drivers I've ever met - his attitude is appauling and he seems to have little understanding of the principles of cause and effect.

The majority of tailgaters (disregarding the aggressive ones) are in my experience middle aged. The majority of people who don't signal properly are in my experience middle aged...etc... The thing is, you can do something about being inexperienced.

Charging young drivers silly amounts for insurance and imposing silly restrictions is pointless. It makes us feel like criminals. For instance I can't get a 3rd party extension on my car insturance to allow me to drive other vehicles, so even though I drive a group 10 turbo diesel I can't drive my partner's group 7. However I have a 3rd party extension on my bike insturance even though I only have a 650cc, 50bhp bike I can freely ride anything with a power output of anything upto 150bhp.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Try Norwich Union or C.I.S, they both offer an any car extension to ALL policies regardless of age or policy type(eg Comp/Third Party). I've had the extension since I was 17.