Safe Speed Forums

Just to be pedantic for a moment.

1) There are no longer bodies called LEAs, they are all now simply LAs - since the implementation of the Children's Act which effectively brought Education and Children's Social Services together.

2) This qualification is for Northern Ireland - it is not yet recognised here by the examination authorities.

3) Northern Ireland already has a probation period for new drivers where they have a maximum speed restriction of 45 mph for 1 year.

4) No LA can tell a school what GCSEs to offer - it is a matter for the Governors and staff of the school concerned.

I think a speed restriction for probationary drivers is NOT a good idea. The idea of probation is to help drivers to gain experience. Limiting their speed simply means that they will gain no experience of driving at motorway speeds, and so will retard their education.

This is quite apart from the fact that probationers will then be forced to delay other traffic. I think having different speed limits for different vehicles on any single carriageway road will lead to increased overtaking. Remember that overtaking on such roads is one of the most frequent causes of accidents. It is bad that HGV and car limit are different on single carriageways. I don't think that adding a new class of driver to slow moving vehicles benefits anyone.

When I was learning, experience was gained while accompanied. I was SHOWN that when you get to 70 the steering is a little lighter (in a Transit van) which brings back the PassPlus argument again, or probationers limited to certain speeds unless accompanied - which of course would need policing.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Being a bit provocative for a moment, I always thought the 1 year 45mph probationary period in NI was related to the terrorism issue.

Given the fairly low population density, I wouldn't have thought the likely reduction in accidents would be very great. However, if the army had accidentally shot a young lad showing off to his mates who failed to stop (or they thought was suspicious) then the adverse publicity would be intolerably bad.

(Sorry about the bad grammar - it's Sunday morning)

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

No-one has thought of the fact that many road users these days do so without giving the authorities any chance of assessing their ability to control the machine called a car.
When I lived near Mansfield the local paper carried weekly reports of people up before the beak for "driving whilst disqualified" either by reason of having been disqualified from driving or "for not having a driving licence" ie, they had never bothered to take a test in the first place.
It has to be said that there were far too many of these (well, one would be too many, but there were usually two or three a week).
How would you do anything about these? Most of them had either been caught dangerous driving speeding/drunk/drugged driving or just plain "known to the police"
They didn't care and seemingly the authorities didn't either since most of them got a community sentence or less. Possibly with some sort of fine, but as they were on benefits, who really paid?
All in all, perhaps rather than allowing poeple to get into vehicles at an earlier age, it might be best to stop them until they were say 25? The insurance companies would approve since they say the under 25's are a much worse risk than older drivers?

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I started with nothing and I still have most of it left

Hows about a fuel card driving licence, no card no fuel. If you were caught buying fuel for a banned driver you would share thier sentence.
Non driving Lawn mower users would be allowed 4 gallons a year on a special green card. Banned drivers would get a red card.

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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

the RAC is the thorn in the side of this post. changing anything will mean more people wont bother with the test and that is the only thing that counts apparently

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

But I thought fewer people driving was what the government wanted?

Anyway, As far as the original suggestions go, I don't see why it should be any harder to police than the seat-belt wearing law. Obviously, you'd need proper traffic police to do this rather than cameras, but as long as the authorities didn't try to do this on the cheap and had a reasonable number of trafpols, I'd have thought they could stop and question anyone who looked underage in a more powerful car easily enough?

I don't like the idea of limiting engine size. My wife's old 1.4 Metro would give my old 3 litre Scimitar a run for its money! How about doing it on CO2 emissions? That is a pretty good link to performance / weight and it already exists as a measurement. It could also be used as a sop to the environmentalists.

I learned to drive in a 4-legged Reliant with a 700cc engine. It wouldn't do 80 (and one wouldn't have wanted to even if it could)! Lots of us learned to drive in cars which were MUCH less powerful than a 1.2 Corsa of today. I think the "bar" needs to be set at a lower power-to-weight ratio than that. Yes, it will dramatically reduce the choice of cars available but when I was 17, anything with wheels and an engine was appealing!

FInally, I really think the government should invest in a few dozen high-tech driving simulators round the country. Kids these days all seem good at computer games and I'm sure most of them will have much better reactions than me but they tend to have poor observation / anticipation skills. A simulator that was programmed to throw in the sort of thing they might not foresee (kids running out etc) might be valuable. It's true there would be a huge queue for time on so few machines, but again, if the government's intention is to make it hard for them to get on the road and reduce (in any way it can) the number of road users, maybe that wouldn't be such a problem?

Fuel can easily be siphoned from one tank to another

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

The problem is, and this has been covered before, you have regular decent good drivers who have chalked-up too many points from speeding. If their livelihood depends on having a licence they will simply carry on driving. This is where the law is an ass. There are many drivers out there who do a great many miles per year through their job and they do it year after year, faultlessly, gaining ever more experience. These are the very same drivers who are at most risk of getting done but who are likely to be amongst the safest drivers on our roads.

Banning safe drivers is not the answer, but it is happening every day. It's wrong to label a banned driver as a bad driver and insurance companies, like Swinton, are recognising this too when it comes to speeding endorsements, I'm glad to say. It's a pity others don't see it the same way in high office

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Just to touch back to the learning issue

Many instructors are now training people to pass a test not how to drive.

When my OH took lessons in around 2002 her instructor did not take her over 30mph didnt do any night driving and even the things we regard as simple like filling up with petrol went unmentioned.

The instructors car had tape markers on the windscreens and mirrors so manouvres like the paralell park was done by reversing till this marker lines up with the car bonnet then apply one turn of lock un till the other marker lines up with...

She had no idea about the concept of sidelights and dipped beam either.

She ended up with a driving license but being totally incapaple of driving.

I will point out that the instructer was graded at the highest band - figures why he was so intent on getting his students to pass the test.

I like the comment earlier about having a test then having a probationary period followed by an advanced test. NOt sure what restrictions during the probationary period should be imposed - as noted above there are pros and cons in most of them.

The problem with all of these limitations is the assumption that the 'new' driver is going to be owning their own car. In which case, some sort of power/weight restriction might be appropriate.

But if there is only the family car (or Mum's car) then such a restriction cannot be neither fair not valid

Again, this assumes that every vehicle has only one driver.

If I fill up the family car (or company van) and it is subsequently driven by a family member (or work colleague) who is disqualified, why should I be punished? (particularly in the work scenario).

If I fill up the farm's Landrover - which can legally be used without any licence on the farm - would I be guilty if one of the farmhands is disqualified?

Many of these ideas look good on paper, but as al3ways, the devil is in the detail. Like abolishing VED and increasing fuel duty instead. Fine for city dwellers; not so fair on country dwellers, where distances travelled have to be high; there is no alternative public transport to speak of; much fuel is burnt where VED is not currently required (ie on farms)

Not sure I get your meaning there! The idea is to limit the kid driving the car. When mum or dad drives it, they're not limited. In other words, if the copper stops a kid on his "probationary" year in a car with CO2 emissions greater than "XXX" he gets "nicked" but there would be nothing to stop his parents driving the same car. OK, I guess it means that there needs to be more than one car in the family (unless the parents are happy to have a low CO2 car for their own use). Maybe they could still drive the larger CO2 car if accompanied by an older person with a licence?

The problem with restricting younger drivers in any way is that it will only apply to the law abiding ones, and chances are these aren't the ones causing all the problems in the first place.

You can come up with all the laws and restrictions you like. This government would probably put a chip on your driving licence (or ID card) and mandate the retrofitting of card readers to all vehicles so that a 1.4 car would reject a 17 year old's driving licence and not start, but the non-law-abiding types would get around this. Hotwire the car if it's an old one, engine swaps, 1.3 litre RX-7, stolen driving licence, you name it they'll find a way, meanwhile good little Jimmy is prevented from being able to drive his dad's Mondeo and therefore cannot gain any driving experience because they can't afford a second car. Even if you do manage to sucessfully prevent them from driving outside if your defined parameters (which you wont), you can still drive like an idiot and kill someone in a Smart Car.

It comes down to a common SafeSpeed argument, we need real police out there catching the ones who drive badly and giving them a bollocking/caution/ticket/summons as appropriate, not more technical measures and stupid little rules that make for good publicity, more paperwork and no real benefit to the likes of you and me.

Fair comment - and in an ideal world, the Safe Speed philosophy would be practiced by all and sundry. The problem is that it's not! I agree with you completely that any kind of "blanket" restriction is doomed not to work in all cases but I'm pretty stuck for alternative ideas! I know what I was like as a kid of 17 who had just passed his test - and I wouldn't have classed myself as a nutter then, but at the same time, I think I'd have had a major "off" if I'd been given the keys to my current car on my 17th birthday!