Modern media outlets really are dreadful.
Older drivers could be forced to retake driving test at 65 under new proposals
Yeah… Er, no actually.
Older drivers would be forced to retake their driving test at 65 under new proposals called for by a campaigner.
A Parliament petition is calling for road users to be retested when they hit 65 years of age due to worries around safety.
Poll founder Deniss Fomins claims there are a lot of older road users who “should not be” behind the wheel.
So some pompous, ill-informed fuckwit has raised a petition based upon nothing more than his own anecdotes and this is a ‘proposal’ now. FFS!
I’m over 65. I am still teaching new motorcyclists to ride. I suggest that my roadcraft skills probably exceed those of Mr Fomins. And as we are going with anecdote, it ain’t older drivers I see barging through gaps that don’t exist, making dangerous overtaking manoeuvres, cutting across lanes, talking on their phones, or driving up the wrong side of the road and nearly knocking me off the bike in the process. The two mishaps I had last year, both times when stationary, were not caused by elderly drivers, they were caused by young women – as was the incident involving the driver who drove towards me on my side of the road while looking at her phone. Maybe young women should be forced to have retests as there does seem to be a pattern here. It’s no more stupid than Fomins’ proposal and has just as much evidence to back it up.
They pointed out a series of concerns from personal experience such as noticing older road users forgetting to use their indicators and having slow reactions.
Oh, wow, forgetting to use indicators. Maybe they didn’t need to, as the Highway Code does say to use them when necessary and I frequently don’t for that reason – but, yeah, this is the preserve of older drivers (clue – no it isn’t). As for reactions, yesterday, they were quick enough to get me out of trouble when a driver pulled out of a side road right into my path, so I’m pretty sure I’m okay on that score. What this lackwit is missing is that older drivers make up for slower reactions with experience.
But, yeah, we need retesting. Fomins is a fuckwit with 173 other ill-informed cretins behind him (yup, 173 other fuckwits have signed his stupid petition), but this is somehow being reported as if it is some sort of new government initiative. For the record, the government and DVSA are overwhelmed with other matters, so this isn’t even on their radar and nor should it be.
It’s not that this moron has come up with this staggeringly stupid petition that is so outrageous, it’s that the Express thinks it is worth giving him coverage – him and the 173 idiots who signed it.
“older road users forgetting to use their indicators”.
Maybe they were driving BMW’s?
LOL! But it’s mostly Audis now.
But I thought it had moved on to Mercedes?
So how come insurance companies, who know a thing or two about risk, charge a 20-year-old 5x the premium of a 70-year-old for the same vehicle?
There are some bad old drivers and some bad young drivers, it’s just that there are far more of the latter.
Very likely the author of the article was one of the 173 and was trying to publicise the petition. The BBC managed this once a few years ago by breathlessly reporting the status of a petition (presumably one they supported) morning, noon and night. Apparently the Express doesn’t have the same reach …
I suggest asking the insurance companies for some statistics. Which age group has as many serious accidents as 17 year olds? If it’s 65 year olds then yes, test 65 year olds. But I suspect it will be much older than that, probably 75, 80 or even older.
I’m almost 75 and just started driving again after a medical problem. DVLA made me have a driving assessment before they gave me my licence back. After the assessment the two assessors went into another room, presumably to discuss my driving, turned round and came straight back out. I guess they didn’t have anything to discuss. 🙂
I intend to book another driving assessment in about 5 years time. I, of course, think I’m a superb driver, but I also think I’m not the best person to judge, so I’ll leave it to the professionals.
I’m 65 too and have a pretty unblemished driving record spanning over forty years. I’ve always thought that it would make sense for drivers to have some kind of re-assessment maybe every ten or fifteen years but I understand that the resources that would need to be put in place would be huge. As I imagine it, you would voluntarily take some kind of refresher course before your assessment which would be similar to a regular driving test. Rather than pass or fail you would then be either given a pass or assigned a number of follow up lessons to bring you up to scratch. Only in extreme cases would your licence be downgraded to the equivalent of a provisional and then you would have to retake your test. To me this is not only about dangerous driving but also about people who seem to have forgotten how to drive since passing their test. Positioning vehicle correctly when turning right and signalling correctly on roundabouts being the most common examples that I see.
A couple of points here. This kind of scheme could operate with existing resources and out with the DVSA. The likes of IAM, RoSPA or ADIs could carry out such activities and the evidence presented to the DVLA upon licence renewal every ten years. However, see the point Judd makes about motivation. This kind of scheme only works with people who are engaged with the idea of continuous improvement. The majority will jump through the hoops then revert to normal once they have their ticket.
I obviously drive a car (and a hated full fat 4×4) but speak from the perspective of a lorry driver (artics of all sorts, car transporters, currently tankers) of some 47 years and still counting, a job i wanted to do from childhood and still enjoy despite being over retiring age…except for the continual deskilling of my industry which is destroying it from within, our industry is far from alone in that.
The best drivers in all classes of vehicles i’ve known are those who take an interest and a pride in their driving.
If your only interest in driving is as a method of getting from A to B and view your vehicle whatever it is as nothing more than a refigerator or other white goods then the chances are your driving won’t improve much from the first couple of years you took to the road.
Similarly if you’re a lazy obnoxious ill mannered immoral lout of any age then its a fair bet thats exactly what you are behind the wheel.
Age means nothing, i’ve watched newly trained lorry drivers every bit as competent as some that have 30 years behind them, because they wanted to do well.
I do everything i can to help and encourage those who show they have some nous.
The place i work, we carry our own manufactured foodstuffs, its a decent sized high profile fleet, the old school as it were all over 60 somehow manage to go through the years without so much as a cracked mirror, its the younger (often agency) or drivers who have the accidents and negligent maneuvering damage, though bad luck wrong time wrong place can happen to anyone, the older drivers who have damage are invariably uncaring types with bad attitudes.
As said above, odd how the insurers haven’t worked out how dangerous 65 year olds are #facepalm.
Its a pity some truck operators and transport managers can’t distinguish between the good and bad like insurers do, instead its the current fashion of one size fits all eh?
“The best drivers in all classes of vehicles i’ve known are those who take an interest and a pride in their driving.”
Spot on.
Mr Deniss Fomins, who inherited his dyslexia from his mother, is a former advanced driving instructor to an American, Mr Joseph Robinette Biden, a transgender who stands out as one of Mr Fomins’ resounding successes and is capable of the tricky 98 point turn and has only killed 7 pedestrians in the 34 times he’s attempted this daunting feat…
Mr Biden hopes to pass his test again in 2024. The Supreme Court has indicated that his chances of success are 100.99%
Unfortunately this is how our government works. Every now and again they tighten everything up. They make rules and then a bit later they adjust them. The always adjust them they same way, they get more restrictive and I see this happening eventually. Next it will be if you have had an accident you will need to retake the test. Even small ones where you bump into the back of someone. Expansive new industry to mop up the unemployed and make everyone work. Either as a trainer or a tester.
I fucking hate these scumbags.
UK Courts already have the power to disqualify bad drivers that come before them and force them to retake tests if necessary.
That should be sufficient discretionary power (if it is used appropriately), rather than just passing some arbitrary date on a calendar.
The problem is that far too few bad drivers end up before the judiciary since driving over the speed limit is the only thing that seems to be measured nowadays.
Everything else either requires police patrols to intervene (rare as rocking horse shit) or a severe enough accident that police attend the scene and interview the driver under caution.
I’ve noticed that we are plagued by phone zombies which are mainly the young. They blindly cross the road whilst staring at their phones without a care in the world. luckily for them i’m most on one of my bicycles so i’m able to avoid them, though i know that one day some zombie is going to be hit by me riding my e bike at 15mph. It’s gonna hurt. This zombie like behaviour carries on when they are driving – especially young women. The other day one nearly killed me as i walked across a pedestrian crossing. She sailed through the red light and missed me by inches. It was obvious that she didn’t realise how close she came to killing me and was oblivious to her surroundings.
One of these tried to kill me about three months ago. Careered across the road onto my side, driving directly towards me. I had no escape route so braked firmly to a stop. She veered up onto the pavement and stopped, whereupon she just carried on with her phone. I did try speaking to her but she just gave me the finger. Yeah, it’s the over 65s that are the problem, not the twenty somethings on their bloody phones.
When I passed my Driving Test aged 17, my wise driver dad said “OK son, that’s your Test done. Now you can start learning how to drive – and if you’re smart, you’ll never stop learning”.
Over 55 years and a million miles later, through a wide range of vehicles and countries, I know the old boy was right.
My grandfather, who had been a motorist in the 1910s, had just one piece of driving advice. “Make sure the vehicle is only ever doing what you want it to do, once it decides what to do you’re a dead man”. Seems that motoring wisdom is genetic.