read this on ananova a while back and thought i would post it aswell... this is actually taken from the Slant.. it doesnt look official yet but i wouldnt be supprised if it ever did and hopefully soon... here is a couple of extracts from it:
to be honest yes it would be a lot better and safer. i know a lot of people that do stupid thing's in car's.. a lot of people i am weary of getting into a car with just because you have heard about their exploit's..... following a friend of mine one day and was amazed the way she was driving on the m4, yet me sitting back being careful, i didnt lose sight of her or lose much ground. The other thing is i have 2 friends, one is due for his practical test next week, i would be more than happy to get in his car he is fairly sensible. His brother (Older by 2 years) who has just passed his theory today, i would be very worried about? Why? Lack of common sense....
More road experience would be good, but you only start to get "real" experience once you're driving without an instructor IMO. I definitely think there should be compulsory lessons driving in adverse conditions and how to recover control of the car if you skid. It might never happen, but I'd bet quite a large percentage of drivers at some point end up in a situation where that training would (at least help) avoid a crash. It can be more difficult than any other aspect of driving, yet we get taught nothing about it. In my lessons the only thing I was told was if the car skids, turn into it.
TBH, I think our current driving test's difficult enough, many people take a couple of tries to pass, so it's obviously not that easy. These new measures would be not only very expensive, but entirely inconvenient for all new drivers; AFAIK, the British driving test is already one of the most difficult in the world.
Indeed, the UK test is already a very hard test. I reckon a much better thing to do would be to instate mandatory wearing of plates signifiying a new driver. I cannae mind what letter they use in countries that do this, but it's like a P or something on a similar sort of thing to an L plate. It just tells the world that you're a new driver(lisence within the last 18 or 24 months). Make that compulsory and I reckon a lot of the problems with the current system could be remedied.
Even better would be a harder test and mandatory number of 'hours' before you are allowed to take the test.. akin to flying hours et al. And if it was me, I'd also want an IQ test, SATs, GMATs and a whatever else I can find. I hate it when I say.. 'I've been driving for 8 years and I haven't ever been stopped by the police, never had a crash, never had a speeding ticket and never had any points off my licence.' and they reply with. 'You're just lucky.' So do people expect to crash/drive dangerously/get pulled over normally then?? Jeez... get these people off the roads, it's not called luck, it's called safe and sensible driving for the conditions and type of road. (Yes, I do confess to driving 'briskly' at times and no, increase speed does not = dangerous; increase speed over what would be otherwise be safe for the current road conditions does = dangerous).
I wouldn't mind as much if it wasn't all just a rouse to get people to sink more money into the driving industry. That said learning to drive on ice would be awesome, its scary :S
100 hours is waay too much. A good instructor normally starts at £20 per hour, so driving would cost £2000 minimum and the test fee. Far too much IMHO.
Absolutely. A minimum number of driving hours is a good idea, however I can't see any way that they would be able to make it mandatory that these be with a professional instructor, pricing most people out of being able to drive. If these hours could be with just anybody then thats all good, but I can't see an easy way of keeping people from fabricating records of this.
I totally agree that there should be a minimum amount of road hours required to drive. I personally took a lot of lessons, around 50, through choice so I could ensure I was a safer driver (as at the time I was not a particularly self confident person). I also agree with NiHiLiST, skid control training should also be mandatory. I'm quite fortunate that I've been told many times by my dad who has done a lot of ice driving how to control a slide. Most people I know have no idea what to do and I know it sure saved my behind the other day. And remember kids, Driving in the wet, in a rear wheel drive car, on brand new tyres, round a round about, is not a good thing to do at more than about 10 miles an hour!
I'll be doing the Pass Plus and my friend is paying for me todo a skid pan day after I've passed that to get me better confidence.
Rather than mandating any specific training, woudn't it be better to look at the actual causes of serious / fatal accidents, especially amongst new drivers, and then base at least part of the cirriculum on those? For that matter, is the percentage of accidents which new drivers cause or are invlved in really that significant? Are there other, more significant factors at play? I would certainly suspect that expierienced drivers who are intxicated and elderly drivers cause more accidents than new drivers, though I am open to being proven wrong by the statistics. We will never eliminate accident's caused by new drivers because they are in a word, inexperienced. At some point you start getting diminishing returns and we, as a society, just have to let them go out, knowing that statstically at least some are going to kill themselves or others with a car. This is called life.
Here you UK guys go making your system even harder, and I'm still embarrassed by how easy the American system is. Most people get their licenses without driving for an examiner, and if you wait till you turn 18 you don't even need formal instruction (varies by state, I suppose), you just have to pass a very easy written test. I visited England two years ago and instantly upon looking out the window at Heathrow decided that most American drivers would kill themselves or someone else within minutes if they were forced to drive there. I realize that's a big city, but I've seen big city America as well, and there's no comparison. I think that the system shouldn't require any specific amount of training or schooling, and should instead be based on proficiency testing. There should be time spent on a closed course demonstrating skid recovery and other unusual situations as well as the basics like merging, lane changes, and parking. The current system here is based entirely on knowing the laws and nobody ever bothers to check if you're capable of controlling 3000 lb of steel at 75 MPH.
People say that most accidents involve new drivers, but it doesn't say who's fault the accident was, if it was because a new driver was following the laws to the letter and someone who was in a rush and more experienced didn't and caused an accident because the inexperienced driver didn't expect it due to the lack of experience then there's no problem. Apart from the stupid driver who made the mistake.
This is the first I've heard about a written licensing test. In NY, you've got to take a test to get your permit, and then take a 5 hour course & pass a quiz, learn how to drive, and then you drive in the streets with an examiner and you have to change lanes, make turns, do a k-turn, and parallel park. There are stop signs, intersections with lights, and everyday traffic to deal with. Maybe in Iowa the system is based entirely on knowing the laws, but in NYC, an extremely dense traffic area, you have to physically prove that you can drive and maneuver correctly. Anyways, I agree with the IQ test suggestion! And I also agree with the notion that many accidents happen due to inexperience and carelessness. Carelessness includes the idiots who play with their phones, send text messages, apply makeup, make sandwhiches, and do other nonsense things instead of paying attention to the road.
I really want to do a skid pan day and a track day. I never did pass plus, although I always meant to.
I know people who shouldn't be allowed on the road, however, they have breasts and are not affraid to use them on nerdy little driving examiners...
Some say the current test is already difficult, and that may be the case. The problem is that when learning to drive, they are in fact not learning to drive but rather learning how to pass the test. Enforcing compulsory testing in varying weather condition can only be a good thing, but the focus has to switch to learning the art of driving rather than just merely passing the test.
I can guarantee I am learning to drive, whenever I do stuff my instructor will say that an examiner may accept it, but he doesn't so I have to keep re-doing it untill I get it spot on.
