Safe Speed Forums

Yes, let's scrap driving tests.

But leave every other aspect of traffic law unchanged. So you couldn't legally jump into a Ferrari on your 17th birthday without insurance.

That would effectively privatise driving tests to the insurance companies - would it make matters better or worse?

Just a thought, this is brainstorming after all

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Fascinating - and hugely complex to understand. Perhaps we need lists of 'pros and cons' to start to get a grip. (Well I do anyway.)

Pros:

- strong link between test content and crash history via insurance data
- would almost certainly lead to tiers of higher level testing
- insurance companies could invite folk to submit to psychological testing, while such testing by government is highly intrusive at best if compulsory.
- 'The Driving Test' stops being the driver education target
- Research in Texas indicated that early driver training didn't make better drivers anyway, rather the opposite with the 'most highly trained' (by their standards; probably the wrong standards) having most crashes.

Cons:

- you would be able to drive untested at a price
- shopping around for insurance could become rather complex
- It may be in the interests of insurance companies to develop very individual tests, leading to lack of standardisation (or even wild variation)

That's a start... Anyone?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I would like to point out that the amount of training required to take the driving test is inversely proportional to the natural competence of the student.

This is natural and only to be expected - somebody who has a natural ability to control a car will only need a little training to reach a set level of competency, somebody who has no natural ability will need a lot of training to reach the same level.

This is the major flaw with all of the "learners must undergo X hours/months/years of training" plan - it assumes that everybody has exactly the same level of ability, while in reality some will need all of X and more to begin to be competent, while others will have had huge expense and inconvenience forced upon them for no purpose at all other than because some officials haven't got a clue about human nature.

I had 9 1-hour lessons, no private practice (dad wouldn't insure me for his car) and passed the test first time, while some of my peer group in the 6th form had 60+ lessons to pass (one girl even claimed that it was the fishnet stockings that got her through her 4th test).

Insurance companies might require different levels of training/competance for people in the highlands compared to someone within the M25.

You could even specalise training. on london doing more parking, junctions etc

In remote scotland a skid pan test, speed and judgement

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

True - but perhaps the roads do too, and I believe it is statistically fair to assume that bigger risks are nearer home.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

How would this idea - and I'm going to think about it over the weekend - bode with the earlier concept of tagging 3rd party insurance onto fuel?

Different planet I think.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The two are obviously incompatible, I think.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Incompatibility was my initial thought too, but I'm really not so sure.

We're only talking third party, and most chavs do only themselves in don't they?

But that would allow you to drive legally without taking any tuition whatsoever, which abolishing official tests but retaining the insurance requirement would not do.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

The way I see it the very rich and the very poor would likly escape the testing system. However, (contrarary to media myth) rich people are not generally stupid and Dad would surly ensure that sonny was suitably trained before giving him a new (and expensive) Mazerati. (as he would before giving him a polo pony)

At the other hand you would get the chav element buying old nails for 50 quid and driving them without any formal training at all. But they do that anyway so I suspect the impact would be less dramatic than you might expect. (and at least the rest of us would benefit from the automatic third party element)

In the middle, it wouldnt just be the insurance companies that would require "Certificates of competance" I immagine that the finance companies would have something to say about it too!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"