Just how bad are drivers, in general?

[Ming the Merciless]

No, but the numbers really are quite low.

For the UK, the numbvers killed per billion vehicle kilometres is 3.9.

For context, the average car is driven about 8,000 miles per year, so (roughly) 12,000 Km.

What percentage of those km is motorway?

 

[PedallingNowhereSlowly]

Is it technology in cars that's improving the statistics? Is that enabling even worse driving? (Not saying it is so, but I'm interested in the answer to those questions)

The statistics are one side of the story. The other side of the story is how uncomfortable our roads are to use - to the extent I derive no pleasure from driving these days on account of having to anticipate and compensate for the idiocy of others.

 

[mjr]

What percentage of those km is motorway?

and quasimotorway (roads where motorists have bullied almost all others off), ideally.

 

[mjr]

The scary part of this is that there's no limit to the number of times a person can resit the test!

Is that more or less scary than the lack of retesting to check drivers have kept up to date as required by the licence conditions? Fluke a pass at 17, then you might easily keep driving for 77 years without even looking at the current code, without penalty.

 

[Alex321]

Is that more or less scary than the lack of retesting to check drivers have kept up to date as required by the licence conditions? Fluke a pass at 17, then you might easily keep driving for 77 years without even looking at the current code, without penalty.

I wouldn't mind betting that quite a high proportion of those who took their test 10+ years ago would struggle to pass now, even though not much has changed in that time.

For those who took it 30+ years ago, so much has changed that I think most would fail unless they took fresh lessons. Even some of the things in practical driving that you were taught and expected to do 40 years ago would be fails now - such as when stopping at an uphill junction, we were taught to hold the car on the clutch, rather than using the handbrake.

 

[Dadam]

Well I took my test 36 years ago and was taught to put handbrake on. My instructor did teach me about holding on the clutch, saying it was a useful skill but said don't do this on the test!

 

[Alex321]

Well I took my test 36 years ago and was taught to put handbrake on. My instructor did teach me about holding on the clutch, saying it was a useful skill but said don't do this on the test!

Mine was 10 years before yours, in 1978. I was sure they changed that advice, but wasn't at all sure when.

 

[HMS_Dave]

Sadly, no matter when people passed, they quickly develop many of the bad habits of other road users. I would imagine mass retests would resort in many people being taken off the road, enough to make the treasury boffins quake in their vaults, therefore would never happen, unfortunately.

 

[Badger_Boom]

Re-testing is the logical answer, but where will we recruit the thousands of examiners this would need when there's a massive backlog of people waiting for their first test?

 

[Drago]

Cars parked in the crossing zone outside Mini D's school again.

Make all offences a banning matter, 28 days for minor infringements up to life bans for real lunatic antics or 'death by.' Those that choose to argue the toss in court get that escalated to a 90 day ban if they are still found guilty.

People will soon buck their ideas up.

I've never known a class of lawbreaker treated by society and the justice system as leniently as road criminals.

 

[screenman]

Cars parked in the crossing zone outside Mini D's school again.

Make all offences a banning matter, 28 days for minor infringements up to life bans for real lunatic antics or 'death by.' Those that choose to argue the toss in court get that escalated to a 90 day ban if they are still found guilty.

People will soon buck their ideas up.

I've never known a class of lawbreaker treated by society and the justice system as leniently as road criminals.

I completely agree on that last sentence, how often we see the words, "when are you going to catch real criminals" on FB

 

[Profpointy]

I wouldn't mind betting that quite a high proportion of those who took their test 10+ years ago would struggle to pass now, even though not much has changed in that time.

For those who took it 30+ years ago, so much has changed that I think most would fail unless they took fresh lessons. Even some of the things in practical driving that you were taught and expected to do 40 years ago would be fails now - such as when stopping at an uphill junction, we were taught to hold the car on the clutch, rather than using the handbrake.

I was most definitely not taught to hold the car on the clutch rather than the handbrake. Granted you needed to momentarily hold it on the clutch, and maybe practised doing it until you could, but was not taught to do it for normal driving or on the test. Maybe you've misremembered or perhaps it was explained badly. I did my test around 42 years ago

 

[Drago]

You'd fail your test tomorrow if you held the car stationary on the foot brake with the clutch in under any circumstances - youre demonstrably 'not in control', that is when you go to pull away the car is not in motion for that monent and no brake of any kind is applied while youre moving your foot from brake to gas.

If you're stationary it should be punctuated with an application of the handbrake, or whatever suitable equivalent a particular car might have in this day and age. People that hold cars on the foot brake are simply prats.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I was most definitely not taught to hold the car on the clutch rather than the handbrake. Granted you needed to momentarily hold it on the clutch, and maybe practised doing it until you could, but was not taught to do it for normal driving or on the test. Maybe you've misremembered or perhaps it was explained badly. I did my test around 42 years ago

There is variance sometimes. I was told by an instructor local to me that instructors in German cities are less strict than in rural areas, on the basis that there's quite enough to deal with, whereas when I learned in a very rural area I was taught to drive very exactly; exactly on the speed limit; exactly the right position on the road, exactly the correct sequence when starting, et, c.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Cars parked in the crossing zone outside Mini D's school again.

Make all offences a banning matter, 28 days for minor infringements up to life bans for real lunatic antics or 'death by.' Those that choose to argue the toss in court get that escalated to a 90 day ban if they are still found guilty.

People will soon buck their ideas up.

I've never known a class of lawbreaker treated by society and the justice system as leniently as road criminals.

I can see the logic of this. The difference in adherence to rules like speed limits where a camera is present make it obvious motorists are concerned with consequences, not other's safety.

Many of my clients have been disqualified from driving for reasons that are entirely their own fault; usually it's because they took some substance and decided to drive over to the king of the fairies, then got pulled over or pulled out of their car some time later.

They can try and get another licence after a certain time, in fact I'm personally annoyed that any jail time is included in the moratorium: to my mind, if you have a six-month ban it should start after your twelve-month jail sentence, not run concurrently. On the other hand, it's very expensive to learn to drive here so very few clients try, especially as they haven't all dealt with their underlying substance abuse issues, or in many cases, they're scared of falling into old habits.

One exception to this was a gent with schizophrenia, who apparently drove at about 200km/h late one night through the town while in a full-blown schizophrenic hallucination. As you can imagine this ended baldly and his licence was revoked, but it was a practical measure, not a punishment.