Could this lead to tougher tests for older drivers

And if I have my contacts in. . . ?

 the conversation at the roadside goes something like this:

cop: your license says you need glasses
driver: yeah I’m wearing contacts
cop: can you read the numberplate on the [red fiesta]
driver: [AB12CDE]

and assuming it’s correct then nothing further happens BUT if it goes

cop: your license says you need glasses
driver: yeah I forgot them

then you find yourself in bother

My in-laws moved to a more rural location after retiring, ten miles in any direction to reach a town and more than triple that to the hospital. They will not move, and get quite annoyed when asked about moving closer to a town. Yet they moan about the fuel oil prices, the shared waste water pump, the state of the roads, the terrible state of driving, too many agricultural vehicles on the road, getting snowed in, etc, etc. All the negatives of living in the country yet they chose to live there and it’s only getting harder for them to maintain the big garden and are needing more frequent visits to the hospital.

They’re stubborn and it will be us that will be making weekly 150 mile round trips, as well as one day having to take their car keys off them. But they’re not alone, in the tiny village they live in, most folks are retired.

I can only see this as a growing issue.

That’s well into FAFO territory and the speaker is all ready demonstrating the wrong attitude to driving and should maybe take a rest from such a stressfull activity.

if he worked for my wife he wouldn’t be there – this is already quite far down the list of things he’s done wrong.  His own boss just laughs it off and says “you know what he’s like”.    But the point was that as we all know people don’t take kindly to having their driving criticised – lots of voices lobbying for retests but few actually voluntarily lining up to have someone critique them every few years.

So the proposal is that you are going to retest all people with a driving license every five years?

There are allegedly 50 million people with a driving license that’s 10 million retests every year.

The lower estimate for driving license holders is about 33 million. Thats 6.6 million retests.

That’s doable?

41m licence holders.
6m of them over 70.

Given that over-70’s need to apply for their licence renewal online (self-certifying) every 3 years anyway, surely it’s not too much to add a reactions test, a quick Highway Code test into there as well? It’s not 10m retests, it’d be 6m but spread over 3 years so 2m a year which is exactly what the licence renewal system is at the moment anyway.

Fail the online test, get referred to an actual person to double check it and do a physical driving test.

Hell, if I have to take a reactions test every time I hire a Lime bike at 10pm, I’m fairly sure an online renewals process can add a short questionnaire into the system.

Plus it’d be phased in anyway, it’s not like 2m people would all turn up at the test centre on day 1!

“jumped up traffic warden nazi who obviously was just too short and fat to get in the police” (direct quote!).

That’s not dissimilar to the people who go on Speed Awareness Courses (and yes, I have done one, I got done at 34 in a 30 zone, accelerating too fast out of the village onto the NSL road, a camera van at the far end caught me going from the 30 zone into the NSL zone at 34, there was no arguing about it, it was purely my fault).

Probably 2/3rds the people on the course were on at least their 2nd one. They regarded it as a bit of a ballache, something to sit through. The remaining 1/3rd (inc me) were on their first. Some (inc me) took it as it was intended and actually the guys running it were pretty decent. Some (a couple) made it their mission to be as obnoxious, disruptive and twatty as possible. Smart arse comments, petty whataboutery and then, right at the very end, just as everyone was getting ready to go home, the instructor said “any questions or comments?” and one guy went off on one and you could hear the whole room just sigh and go “FFS, we were literally about to leave and now look what you’ve done!”

The standard of driving in the UK is generally fairly shit.  (Less shit than most countries in the world, but still shit in absolute terms.  You’d never let someone fly a plane with the same level of ineptitude, yet a Cesna 182 and a typical modern near-2-tonne-wagon have the same killing ability, and the car goes a shed load faster, and much closer to people.

How many are totally clueless when the wheel start locking up or the car starts sliding ? Total liabilities in rain or snow.

It needs to be a privilege not a god given right to drive a killing machine on public roads.

Retest every 3 years.  Significantly up the standard to pass. Force further testing for motorway use (how many **** don’t even know not to sit in the middle lane, or to use the hard shoulder to accelerate before rejoining the main carriageway? Etc etc.)

Just gear up to do so. It’s not fecken rocket science, just the daily Hate Mail won’t like it.

The benefit is the roads will have fewer bad drivers, it’ll be better for cycling, and those who are crap will have to use public transport, which will have to be sorted when enough voters start getting angry about how bad it is allowed to be by successive Governments.

yet a Cesna 182 and a typical modern near-2-tonne-wagon have the same killing ability, and the car goes a shed load faster,

?? My car definitely doesn’t go faster than a Cesna.

I suspect the rest of your ambitions to become the hardest country in the world to get or obtain a driving license are economically not going to work very well and so far from reality that the dvla and their masters will not even want to consider reviewing the issues the sheriff raises because it’s the thin end of the wedge towards your solution – which lets face it still wouldn’t eliminate all road casualties.

?? My car definitely doesn’t go faster than a Cesna.

Indeed. Not everyone on here drives 170mph+ supercars.

This driver surrendered their license when shown the video. Police didn’t tell me how old they were but said they had just had a significant birthday. I have been around the block a few times with close passes etc but this really did shit me up. I honestly almost threw the bike in a hedge and walked home (long walk, at least 15km). Forward to about 1.25

They’re stubborn and it will be us that will be making weekly 150 mile round trips, as well as one day having to take their car keys off them. But they’re not alone, in the tiny village they live in, most folks are retired.

I can only see this as a growing issue.

We got stuck a bit earlier in the thread about the “rural” part of it, but the same thing’s going to happen to anyone living in an out-of-town housing estate – in how many of them do you realistically need a car to get anywhere?

I already live in a city with everything in walking distance (and I’m not going to change that) but I think you need to move into your ‘final home’ much earlier than most people think.  You need to do it when you’ve got the energy to make it yours and do any work to it.  If you wait until you actually *need* to move it’s too late for that.  So *personally* I think you need to be moving to somewhere you can live comfortably without a car, and with reduced personal mobility not much later than 70. 75 at the latest.

Already in consideration, we’re late 50’s but the reason is that we’ve seen both approaches from parents/in-laws.

My parents and my FIL both realised in their early 70’s that they needed to put in place their future living, and did.  Worked well.

My MIL wouldn’t face it, ended up badly.

Our plan is to initial move out of the ‘family’ house into the separate ground floor house we renovated out of one of our barns (when Mum passes on) and then later into a bungalow/accessible flat in the nearby small town – they’re not cheap but we’ve a valuable property to sell.  If one of the kids takes on the main house like we did we may just stay in the Annex where Mum is currently.

So it’s 60 then?

@cougar2 yeah, all the way. There are people who also claim to not drive over 40mph on that road because it’s “terrifying”. A760 Largs to Kilbirnie FWIW.

@poly Missed most of yesterday due to travel but I have no problem with my driving being crtiqued but I have worked within a professional body that expects continual development and the habit stuck. Many don’t and may need to learn about continuous learning which will be a tough ask for the current driving cohort but new drivers will learn this during lessons.

yeah, all the way. There are people who also claim to not drive over 40mph on that road because it’s “terrifying”.

I understand driving at 40 in a 60 limit if 60 is inappropriate for the conditions, it’s exactly what they should be doing. If it’s ignorance, however…

On a speed awareness course I did forever ago, one of the elements was showing the group photos and asking what they thought the limit was. Unsigned, no-one had a clue. “Uh… 40? 50?”

I think this is why we got monospeeders. Even if you don’t know the limit of unmarked roads, it’s never 40 or 50 if it’s unmarked (assuming a regular car).

Haven’t read the whole thread, but:

I suggest mandatory dashcams for everyone, the type that also show the inside of the vehicle (blocked to show just the driver, not passengers).

The video will be sent remotely and viewed by AI, anything found will be flagged for a human to check properly. The constant AI monitoring will also catch people who don’t have them or turn them off/sideways etc.

Privacy issues? You’re driving in public. If you’re concerned about people watching you, drive on private land only (where it will be legal to turn the cameras off).

The entitlement amongst boomers in general is quite something to behold. In this sense, wanting to keep driving 2 tonne SUVs at the risk of killing other people is entirely in keeping.

Lovely stereotyping and sweeping generalisation.

Privacy issues? You’re driving in public. If you’re concerned about people watching you, drive on private land only (where it will be legal to turn the cameras off).

Can I assume you’re neither female nor someone that has good reason to be wary of being filmed at all times? Or just concerned about the privacy implications of such a system?

https://uk.pcmag.com/cars-auto/151254/fcc-moves-to-protect-domestic-abuse-survivors-from-connected-car-stalking

https://ij.org/press-release/federal-lawsuit-challenges-virginia-citys-use-of-over-170-cameras-to-conduct-prolonged-warrantless-surveillance-of-entire-driving-population/

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly object to on board recording but only if it only gets stored locally and viewed with a warrant and good reason. Your solution is dystopian at best and a stalkers wet dream at worst.

Lovely stereotyping and sweeping generalisation.

Where?

Lovely stereotyping and sweeping generalisation.

Well, my fourth and fifth words were ‘in general’ so, yeah.

<Shrugs>

Can I assume you’re neither female nor someone that has good reason to be wary of being filmed at all times? Or just concerned about the privacy implications of such a system?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly object to on board recording but only if it only gets stored locally and viewed with a warrant and good reason. Your solution is dystopian at best and a stalkers wet dream at worst.

It wasn’t 100% serious 😉

As I laid it out it above it’s clearly OTT and has major privacy issues, but I think the idea in general has some merit, for discussion if nothing else. For example it’s only feasible if 100% locked from any human viewing the footage unless the (as reliable as possible) AI has flagged something. All footage could be local and processed by the onboard computer, only short clips sent remotely. Etc.

Never gonna happen, regardless!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

I have to be retrained/tested every 5 years to continue to use a powered access platform for working at height in my job. It stays on private land, doesn’t do more than 10mph and is nowhere near the public (fenced site, locked gate at all times). Its also a piece of equipment I will use approximate 75% of my working year, yet to keep the license I have to do it. There is absolutely no excuse for not having a highway code/theory refresher and practical test every 5-10 years for all drivers. Its the only way, combined with more enforcement and tougher sanctions/less ‘hardship’ get outs, to improve the dire driving skills in this country. I drive a 2 tonne Transit and the number of idiots in smaller, lighter vehicles that cut me up/get to close/overtake at stupid times and they will come off much worse than I will if it goes wrong, proves it.

I drive a 2 tonne Transit and the number of idiots in smaller, lighter vehicles that cut me up/get to close/overtake at stupid times and they will come off much worse than I will if it goes wrong, proves it.

And why do you think they would drive any differently after doing a test every 10 years?  Everyone will go out of their way to pass a test as they really, really want to be able to continue driving but thinking it will change their behaviour once passed it a bit optimistic.

They are driving like **** because they are ****, not because they don’t know how they should be driving.

I don’t know how often it needs to be said, it’s been several times on this thread alone now, but there is no such thing as a “hardship get-out.” Every loss of driving privileges is a hardship pretty much by definition, vanishingly few people will react to a licence suspension with “fantastic, just what I wanted!”

As lovely as it may sound and I’m sure few here will argue against retesting, full practical retests every five years simply isn’t going to happen. Back when I passed my test in 1990 it was a six week waiting list and I doubt that’s gone down in the intervening years. There’s presumably more car drivers than access platform workers by several orders of magnitude. We don’t have anywhere near the resource. It’s easy to say “build it then” but how’s that working out for the police, the courts, the jails, the hospitals…

What might work is some sort of staggered refresher. Back when I used to throw myself out of aeroplanes for fun, if you hadn’t made a jump in [time] then you had to retrain. Passing the shortest threshold merited a couple of minutes with an instructor, then a stepped scale up to IIRC two years where you were then treated as though you were a complete noob and had do take the entire course again. We could do something similar with driving perhaps, a short initial test which if you fail qualifies you for mandatory retraining / a longer retest.

They are driving like **** because they are ****, not because they don’t know how they should be driving.

I don’t think that’s true. Or rather, I think it’s true for a percentage of drivers, but there is a percentage who genuinely don’t know any better. And probably a percentage also who are simply incompetent.

Take the Lane Two Owners’ Club drivers. Why do we suppose they drive onto the motorway directly into the middle lane and stay there until swerving off at their exit? Some simply don’t give a ****, I’m alright Jack, I’m doing almost the speed limit; some think it’s what you’re supposed to do (one of the mouth-breathers on the SAC said they thought it was the “cruising lane”); and some are abjectly terrified of changing lanes so do it precisely twice on every motorway journey.

You’re absolutely right though that on a test the wilfully terrible will drive like there’s a police car behind them and then go back to being bellends as soon as they’re no longer being observed.

What might work is some sort of staggered refresher. Back when I used to throw myself out of aeroplanes for fun, if you hadn’t made a jump in [time] then you had to retrain. Passing the shortest threshold merited a couple of minutes with an instructor, then a stepped scale up to IIRC two years where you were then treated as though you were a complete noob and had do take the entire course again. We could do something similar with driving perhaps, a short initial test which if you fail qualifies you for mandatory retraining / a longer retest.

How would you track this? What about someone who’s kept their licence valid but hasn’t actually driven anything in 10 years, how do the DVLA/whoever know?

I don’t think that’s true. Or rather, I think it’s true for a percentage of drivers, but there is a percentage who genuinely don’t know any better. And probably a percentage also who are simply incompetent.

I don’t 100% disagree, but I think the bulk of poor driving is avoidable (e.g. speeding, drifting across 2-3 lanes on a roundabout and back again, close passes) people mostly know they shouldn’t do it and wouldn’t on a test, but do it anyway.  There’s no way testing will resolve that.

Motorway lane discipline, overtaking cyclists on rural roads, etc. Those might be down to an actual lack of awareness / skill, but then you get back to the issue of the test. The driving test is ~45min long (and a chunk of that is show me / tell me, maneuvers, etc.  You can’t get to a motorway and back in that time from a lot of towns, let alone drive enough country lanes to guarantee encountering a cyclists and a horse rider.

Back when I passed my test in 1990 it was a six week waiting list and I doubt that’s gone down in the intervening years.

It’s now >6months. But I’d argue that putting the test fee up is a negligible cost in the overall scheme of getting a car, even if it were doubled / trebled.  That would make centers profitable.  Or even just privatize the whole thing, let Serco run it and charge a market rate, we happily trust the car’s MOT test to be done privately, why not the drivers?

How would you track this? What about someone who’s kept their licence valid but hasn’t actually driven anything in 10 years, how do the DVLA/whoever know?

Sorry, perhaps it was a poor analogy.  What I meant was, we could have short routine tests rather than everyone retaking the full test every x years, moving to longer tests when deemed necessary.  Nothing to do with not driving.

There’s no way testing will resolve that.

Perhaps not, but driver (re)training might.  There was a piece in the SAC about the consequences of a collision, from those obviously directly involved, through the emergency services, to the highways guy late home for his tea because he had to work late sweeping up the debris.  It was about the only interesting take-away I had from the course.  I’d bet the wilfully bad drivers don’t give stuff like that a second thought.

You need to know how many drivers testing will make a difference to and how many it won’t.  It would get the older people off the road as they wouldn’t be able to pass whereas most of the poor drivers would just be on best behaviour during test and swot up before the test and get a few lessons and pre assessment from the driving instructors spotting new income stream.

No test is going to catch people driving how they normally drive as they know what is at stake.

What I meant was, we could have short routine tests rather than everyone retaking the full test every x years, moving to longer tests when deemed necessary.

I’ve had to do that to keep track permits active.
Some of the advanced levels (high speed, handling circuit) are quite difficult to get and quite difficult to keep. >75% fail rate.

Worst thing is seeing people on their way to the same place, driving like they’ve got all the training, yet they only just have permission/training to sit in the back of a slowly driven minibus as it tours the track. As that’s all the track training you need to order widgets for the factory.
The guys with all the permits tend to drive very carefully. (As they already know what happens when you completely lose it at speed. Plus loss or track permit if you get a ticket!)

most of the poor drivers would… swot up before the test and get a few lessons

Objective successful then, no?

Objective successful then, no?

Nope, as straight after passing they would back to driving how they like for another 10 years.  Passing a test is not going to make them care anymore than they did before the test.

I passed a test when I was 17 and then drove like an absolute tosser for 5 years so didn’t make me drive properly did it.

Or even just privatize the whole thing, let Serco run it and charge a market rate, we happily trust the car’s MOT test to be done privately, why not the drivers?

one provider (“serco”) isn’t going to charge a market rate – it’s going to charge as much as the gov will let them.  MoT tests are not a single monopoly, but there is also an incentive to fail people rather than just pass everyone who pays.  (Note the system in NI and for taxi drivers is different – so it’s not like market forces are always trusted to overcome corruption!).

You’ll need a lot of experienced driving assessors – other than STW where do you find driving gods?

They are driving like **** because they are ****, not because they don’t know how they should be driving

Yes, I get that but if you have to go to the trouble of changing how you drive to make sure you pass a test them just maybe something will stick!?!?! You then have the added bonus of when they are caught doing something stupid, there really is no excuse and then the heavier sanctions come in.

Saying that, I’d also drop the ‘lose your license’ threshold to 9 max, and have a graduated fine system so you pay more the more times you get caught (even after the points are off your license).

Although, I do think a lot of it isnt just driving like a ****, but a combination of pure laziness and selfishness.

it could also combat general ignorance.  My dad passed his driving test 56 years ago:  a lot of traffic laws have changed since then!

Fortunately, my dad is a conscientous sort and stays up to date on this kind of thing, but I’ll bet plenty of people don’t realise that law X has changed, or junction type Y, which didn’t exist when they were younger, requires people to drive in a certain way.  So re-testing could help bring people up to date too.

I changed how I drove after a SAC.

Who will asses the assessors?

Letters page from the Guardian

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/27/concerns-over-the-fitness-of-elderly-drivers

A group which represents older drivers is calling on all motorists aged over 65 to consider a regular driver’s assessment.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0gpgjdxepo

Noting this bumped thread but very much related to the call for more regular testing was this incident just down the road from mine the other day:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/man-74-dies-after-bmw-30410069

(apologies for the Reach Media ad-fest link…)

~A family friend waqs continueing to drive with dementia – with his wife in the car ( she had poor eyesight).  His motor skills were ok still.  One day she got out of the car and he sped off.  Was missing for 3 hours and found on a roundabout 60 miles away parked up and asleep.

Too many folk continue to drive when they should not be.  We need mandatory retesting for everyone.  Younger drivers as well as older ones.  I have younger friends whos dri9ving is frankly scary because they are not thinking of it as a skilled and dangerous thing – they use that time to make phone calls.