There really does need to be some mechanism for getting less than competent drivers off the road, we were badgering my dad for some time until a failed MOT & report of a stroke finally got him off the road. A GP is too time constrained & unlikely to do anything that will upset their patients.

+1 for the dashboard cams, at least the gits who manage to talk their way out of getting jail time for death by dangerous driving will have more evidence base to battle against

I can’t understand how you can buy a car (new or S/H) without a licence. It should be part of the registration process, then you could link to re-tests.

Not foolproof but would go some way to making regular re-tests a possibility.

My Mum lost most of the sight in her left eye so she doesn’t drive anymore. I assumed it was because she wasn’t allowed to but it turns out she still has her license and could jump in the car any time she wants to.

Apparently you don’t need depth perception to drive.

Father in law was 70 last year. His approach to corners was always too fast coupled with overbraking to then compensate, it was like being on a roller coaster. However he acknowledged it even though he’s a stubborn bastard and joined up to do advanced motoring. He passed and as a result he then started teaching other drivers. If he can improve at 70 odd then perhaps we could all learn a few extra things regarding our driving once in a while.

I’m not a rally car expert either and have never driven one, but whilst I thought they had quicker racks than normal, not quite that quick – though they probably don’t need to use full lock in normal driving, and can get all the wheel movement they need without taking their hands of their wheel. It’s also quite important in a rally car to know when the wheels are straight – which isn’t necessarily obvious based on the yaw rate of the car.

Percentage of older people in the UK 1985, 2010, 2035

from the Office of National Statistics

To be fair (and I do see an argument for periodic retesting), the amount of deaths on UK roads in these circumstances are really very low so to bring in new legislation to cover this type of incident seems a bit of an over-reaction.

If that incident had happened on the railways or airlines, even if no-one was actually hurt, even if two trains/planes didn’t collide there would be investigations, possible criminal proceedings, software to ensure it could never happen again.

On the roads – OK, crack on, it’s “just an accident”.

I would expect it to fail a basic cost benefit analysis i.e. the lives saved (tiny) verses the cost (huge) would render in non viable (given money is a finite resource with many other potentially life saving things to fund).

Not sure I can find it right now but I did see an interesting cost analysis of an vehicle crash in terms of the loss to the family (earning potential of the victim over the expected lifetime, funeral costs, etc) the cost of dealing with it all for the emergency services (resources, money, equipment, time…), the cost to the economy of having thousands of people sitting there in a queue of traffic going nowhere, cost to the insurance industry (and therefore all of us in premiums), the list just went on and on.

It was well over £1 million per fatality.

I’d start with compulsory dashcams and black boxes in cars.
ANPR cameras linked to fuel pumps – car comes up as no insurance/tax, the fuel pump shuts down so you can’t refill.
And some proper sentencing – none of this rubbish you get now on Police Camera Action where after deploying tens of thousands of pounds of resources to catch a drunk driver the voiceover says “the unlicensed, uninsured drink driver was fined £100 and banned from driving for 2 years.”

Hmm, cos banning obviously worked really well the first time…

Each and every road death “costs” around £2m. That’s 40000 periodic retests paid for by each and every prevented death. We should also make the 6 points in 2 years and your sitting your test apply to everyone, not just newly qualified drivers.

A few weeks I was on that section of The M1 at about 2.00am and the overhead matrix signs indicated on-coming vehicles and an advisory speed limit of 20mph, there was no sign of any vehicles and as you got to J24 is was back to 70mph

Just thinking about the ridiculous driving I witnessed in two journeys today.

Car dropping kids off at a lay-by type bus stop tried to meld with mine as it just pulled back onto the road without indicating or seemingly looking.

Beeped by someone at a mini roundabout for turning right onto a main road (they were on my left wanting to go straight on). They then followed me for about a mile and a half inches from my bumper, apoplectic with rage. In the end I pulled into a side road (and checked my indicators were working because I really couldn’t understand what their problem was!) and they floored it off. Really showed me!

Car in front undertaking another car on a three lane roundabout (left – left, middle – straight, right – right as marked on the approach and roundabout) very nearly crashing into a slower car in the left hand lane, before nearly crashing into the car they were undertaking as they cut them up moving back into middle lane. Same car maybe a minute later overtook 4 cars in a row before having to shove their way back in to avoid oncoming traffic. Then overtook the last couple of cars on a blind bend. 5 odd miles later guess what car I found myself behind?

Last but not least nearly had a head on with a chap coming round a corner pretty damn quick on the wrong side of the road. Luckily it’s the road I live on and I expect it every time on that corner…because there’s no road markings maybe?

Everyone should have a driverless car preferably powered by Apple but I could accept Google. As software or hardware sensors never go wrong there would never be an accident ?

Personally I’m more worried about commercial drivers with health issues as per Glasgow bin Larry or the 77 year old bus driver who ploughed into the Supermarket

I cant see how retests would save lives. Wheres the proof it would save lives?

I agree with OP above, we should fine the drunk drivers, 6 points in two years etc far heavier. There is at least a basis for legal action without hitting all the good drivers who far exceed the minority of idiots.

This! http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/92095/thousands-of-uk-drivers-still-on-the-road-with-12-licence-points

Also note those advocating the older ones should be retested that ‘1,718 motorists with a similar record are found between 36 and 45’ and that ‘630 drivers aged between 17 and 25 have more than 12 penalty points’. So its not the oldest or youngest its the middle aged.

This is the area that could be and should be changed.

Or retests by area? ‘The town of Smethwick in the West Midlands is home to the worst drivers in the UK, it’s official.’ LoL

Personally I’m more worried about commercial drivers with health issues as per Glasgow bin Larry or the 77 year old bus driver who ploughed into the Supermarket

I’m.more worried by the commercial “professional” drivers that are just plain old shit!

I cant see how retests would save lives. Wheres the proof it would save lives?

I think it’s worth the cost of an in depth study. There’s enough tech out there to effectively monitor a test group. Simply have two groups, one left alone, one put through the retest and any extra training and see if it produces behavioural change.

I is not an expert though, have never driven an actual rally car

That’s clear. Note the video’s title. Also that he is on the loose not on tarmac.

Anyway, back on topic, from a BBC article in 2003
How dangerous are elderly drivers?

“The Department for Transport (DfT) says there is no evidence older drivers are more likely to cause an accident, and it has no plans to restrict licensing or mandate extra training on the basis of age”.

Though personally I support the idea of periodic re-testing throughout a driver’s life. I’m surprised by the admission of some here that they wouldn’t pass the test now. I reckon I would. I’m slow and old – there must be a moral in that.

Anyway, not just old people, compulsory 10 year re-testing for all imo.

What about graduated licensing? I think that everyone should do separate tests for the road and for motorways, and that new drivers should have at least a year’s experience before being allowed to exceed, say, 50 mph. The idea that a 17 year old (my son is 17 and agrees with me, so I must be right!) potentially has unrestricted access to 1000kgs of metal and power and nothing to stop him from going 90mph is nothing short of completely mental.

Regarding the steering, you have an airbag go off whilst your arm is over the centre of the wheel and you won’t be able to even think about your steering again.

As above – they’ve introduced it on bikes and no-one had a say in the matter despite thousands lobbying for it to be stopped.
But guess what – Bikers are a minority. Without the financial and political clout to hurt any election campaign.
So we got shafted.
Yet in France the recent proposed changes caused a meltdown when thousands of bikers rallied and shut down cities. Changes put on hold.
As always though – the government will do whatever they want to whoever they want as long as its not the main bulk of the voters.
Heaven forbid they upset the car drivers absolute right to drive however and wherever they want…..

And don’t get me started on the KSI bollocks of cars to bikes….

The strange thing for me with this accident, is what was an 87yr old doing out and about at 2am?

Could it have been a suicide mission?

Maybe he’d just landed at East Mids and had spent a week abroad, driving on the right?

I’m not sure, but it looks like you’re making a humorous point there – the thing is, I’m sure that point is currently one of the major issues delaying the adoption of driverless cars, and probably an even bigger issue in the minds of the general public. I remember last time we had a thread on that there were some edge case scenarios introduced and people said that solutions to those cases needed to be found before introducing driverless cars to the public roads.

Personally I like to think I have a better perception of risk than the average person (in the sense that everybody thinks they are above average 😉 ) – if it was up to me, I’d have driverless cars on the public roads tomorrow. Sure they might kill a few people in the early stages, but then that would be more than offset by less people being killed by cars piloted by devices with numerous well documented failures of the sensors and the processing unit.

The strange thing for me with this accident, is what was an 87yr old doing out and about at 2am?

Old people don’t need much sleep. 🙄

A full re-test every 5-10 years? Good in theory, but expensive and intrusive.

I think there should be a two stage process.

1st stage: Eye test, reaction test, maybe some kind of hazard perception test. 5 mins tops, in, out, done.

If you fail this, then 2nd stage: Full re-test.

As the the schedule, maybe every 10 years up until 60, then 5 years, then 3 years, etc, etc. Once I’m 95 years old, I think a five min test every year to carry on driving is accetable.

Surely the most frequent testing should be on the segment of the population causing the most accidents?

The trouble is they tend to be fairly competent at the basic skills required by the standard driving test – it’s the other unttested things they struggle with (I was one once and know I did despite passing the test first time at 17 with no trouble)

Each and every road death “costs” around £2m.

In 2013 there were 1713 (2) road deaths of all users, so if we use the figure of £2m per death, that is £3,426m which could potentially be saved.

Given there 45.5m driving licenses in the UK (1), retesting every driver every, say 10 years, would mean 4.55m extra tests per year.

The cost of a retest isn’t just fuel and examination fee, it’s time off work (lost earnings) for some extra lessons, cost of lessons etc, so at a guess say a retest costs £400, the total cost would be £1820m per annum.

So, you’d have to prevent 50% of road traffic deaths through the retest program to break even.

Better than I was expecting to be honest….

(1) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/359016/indicator-table.csv/preview
(2) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/359016/indicator-table.csv/preview

Though the whole problem in this thread is the casual acceptance by society of deaths due to motor vehicles. It’s not worth worrying about the handful of deaths every year due to older drivers who might have been taken off the road by a more rigorous testing routine, because of the hundreds of deaths caused by young people quite capable of passing a retest which we also tend to just ignore. 🙄

I know you were just doing the cost analysis, but once again there seems to be this idea that people having to pay to take lessons because their current driving isn’t up to test standard is a bad thing! (tempted to roll eyes again, but don’t want to overdo that)

The trouble is they tend to be fairly competent at the basic skills required by the standard driving test

Yup, I’d wager the average 19 year old would stand more chance of passing a retest first time than the average 50 year old, I know who I’d rather be in a car with though. The driving test can’t really test for emotional maturity, propensity to show off to mates or inexperience. They’re also traits which will usually become less significant with time.

On the flip side, for the elderly things are moving in the opposite direction. At some point most people will become incapable of driving to the standards required by the law and once that happens they’re typically not going to get better, instead failing eyesight, slow reactions, poor head and neck mobility and so on all become more relevant as time goes by. These are things which could be caught by a fairly quick and simple medical exam.

Intuitively I like the idea of say 5 year retests and of “medicals” for the old but I can see the point that the evidence for lives saved probably isn’t there.

I know you were just doing the cost analysis, but once again there seems to be this idea that people having to pay to take lessons because their current driving isn’t up to test standard is a bad thing!

Whether a cost of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is a moral judgement which is completely irrelevant to a cost benefit analysis.

Most people would need a few lessons to get back up to test standard and so the cost of this needs to be factored in.

The trouble with doing it through the medical system is that it can drive people out of the system entirely, or lead to weird situations where people lie to their doctors to work the system. So you think you might have a condition that disqualifies you from driving, and you end up avoiding the doctor, or lying to them, and that way the public aren’t protected and also you’re not getting treatment (which probably makes you even more unsafe)

And from personal experience, some of it doesn’t work brilliantly as it is… Frinstance, diabetes, a reportable criteria is “You have had two episodes of severe hypoglycaemia within the last 12 months (where you were completely dependent on another person to treat your hypo)”

One year I’d had exactly that- but it wasn’t relevant to driving, because it happened while I was fast asleep. If I was driving when it was happening then the diabetes would be the least of my worries! So it didn’t, and couldn’t possibly, affect my road safety at all, but could in theory lead to disqualification. And that isn’t just unfair on the honest driver, it also reduces faith in the system, and makes people more likely to misreport or keep things secret. In this case, it’s an obvious oversight in the wording but it makes me wonder how well the rest of it works…

The business case is actually much worse, if look at the driver deaths by age…

Of the 6,029 car drivers killed or seriously injured in 2012: 8% were aged 17 to 19;
25% were aged 20 to 29;
42% were aged 30 to 59;
9% were aged 60 to 69;
13% were over 70.

As only 22% are over 60, the retest would miss out the younger set who would die before they had to sit one.

NB These are deaths of drivers by age and not age of drivers who killed a 3rd party.

http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn02198.pdf

If you were to suddenly decide to re-test every driver (even allowing for a 5 year phased implementation) where would they be tested and who would test them?

Any where would the money come from (its austerity Britain after all remember) to set it all up.

And lets not forget just how wonderful the DVLA is at present (ever got a licence back missing some of your entitlements?).

I thought we’d already done this one, because the answer is obvious. Where does the money come from to test drivers at the moment? As pointed out earlier, the cost would be a trivial proportion of the total cost of driving.

Yeah but its the sudden increase in volume, you need how many more centres? It took me three weeks just to get a theory test.

How many drivers are there? Divide that number by 5, that’s how many per annum you now need to accommodate.

(A quick google says 30 million, an additional 6 million a year.)

I’ll ask again, how can you implement this?

Well you’d phase it in. I’m sure it wouldn’t be impossible if there was any will to implement it. Probably a good thing for the economy and employment 😉

True, it couldn’t be implemented over night.

But still, ~6 million re-tests a year! That’s a lot. Somebody needs to tell the government, I’m sure some of Gid and CMD’s wonderful private sector ‘mates’ could rip us off like all the other ‘services’, it’d be a wheeze…

incidentally I have an agreement with a mate who is about 30yrs older than me and he’s said that I’m the one who has to have ‘the chat’ with him about handing over his keys when he’s older

he had to do the same thing a few years ago with an elderly male who still did bits of driving – in the end he compared the TCO of car ownership (fuel, car, maintenance, taxes) and compared it to the cost of the local taxi firm and the chauffeured option won. keys were handed over without a problem.

You see those deaths by age group statistics up there. I wonder how much it’s down to what they’re driving rather than how they’re driving. i.e. 30-59yr olds survive more because they’re killing others rather than themselves due to driving tank like cars.

The practicalities of this are quite interesting. We would need approx 3500 new driving examiners which is roughly 7 per test centre. Assuming a cost of £50 per test for 6 million tests – that’s a total income of £300m/year. Assuming that Examiners make £25k/year that’s roughly £92m/yr in wages, double that for other costs and you’re not far off £200m in costs. That looks like £100m in profit to me. Plus you’d have the extra income for instructors, and reduced costs of crash victims. Sounds like a no brainer to me.

I hope I will hand in my keys and give up driving at the correct time. I still think that there are many other ways to reduce casualties. I would ban all motor cycles as they have a very high accident to miles ridden ratio (yes I do have a motor cycle license). I would also reduce the power of all road cars to an adequate level (about 150bhp?) and would have dash cameras so that driver behavior could be reviewed after committing a motoring offence or having an accident.