Frankly, make them terrified! If two wheels are an issue, ride a trike. But people jump in a "safe" metal box with all the driver assists, crash cages and sound insulation from the outside world, and forget - or never knew in the first place - how dangerous the roads actually are. Scare people. Make them wary. And perhaps make them think a bit more about what they are doing when they are being impatient on the road and exercising poor speed judgement.
Petition Increase the Category B driving license weight limit from 3,500kg to 3,650kg
- Thread starter Millcourt
- Start date
All that is needed is the application of common sense, and a good helping of respect for all other road users, be they pedestrians / cyclists / right up to truck drivers. But unfortunately no-one has time anymore, and most seem to lack those 2 basic requirements, all too busy !!!
Exactly. Make them walk a mile in the other's shoes! Actually, I'd extend the requirements to make anyone taking out a vehicle license have to sit in the cab of a large truck - at least 7.5T, ideally 44T with trailer. Do the thing that they do on a bike CBT where you sit in the driver's seat, and someone walks away from you with a traffic cone in each direction. As soon as they become visible either directly or in a mirror, you tell them to drop the cone. Once they've done it in every direction, you jump out and realise how bad the blind spots are, and where you need to avoid being (angles mort!).
Too much impatience, not enough realising the challenge that other road users have. Common sense is anything but common.
On the motorbike I'll regularly "flash out" a truck that wants to overtake something and back off to give him room. Once he's pulled back in, I'm gone and only lost a few seconds - but for him losing momentum or getting that opportunity to go around something slower is a big deal.
Too much impatience, not enough realising the challenge that other road users have. Common sense is anything but common.
On the motorbike I'll regularly "flash out" a truck that wants to overtake something and back off to give him room. Once he's pulled back in, I'm gone and only lost a few seconds - but for him losing momentum or getting that opportunity to go around something slower is a big deal.
Derbyshire wanderer
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Very true, the isolation in the soundproof box with surround sound entertainment etc makes people invincible.
Replace airbags with a metal spike and you would have an instant improvement in behaviour and tailgating would stop overnight.
Anyone who has experience of 2 wheels sees other vehicles as potential metal spikes.
Be careful with the "flashing out", the powers that be (Safety) have now decreed that this is no longer acceptable, and most haulage companies now instruct their drivers not to do it as there have been instances when someone has pulled out and an incident has ensued, with the person involved pleading that " they flashed me so it is their fault"
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You my friend are in a minority of motorists/bikers who really do have an understanding of what is involved in driving large vehicles and I applaud you and thank you for that.
Over the last few years I've noticed that when driving my truck, as soon as I put the right indicator on to overtake another vehicle, 9 out of 10 times any cars in the outside lane speed up so as not to let me out? I actually replaced the lights on my trailer for 3 x hamburger lights on each side and even with 3 indicators going it till makes no difference.
As for haulage companies telling their drivers not to flash? I'm not convinced about that? I just think the lorry drivers of today have no courtesy. Some don't even say thanks when you flash them in. Old school drivers are so easy to spot now and it's such a shame.
As a driver who transports abnormal loads, my worst enemy on the road is other truck drivers who are so blinkered nowadays and don't show any consideration about the size of the load you're moving....shame on them.
But if you examine the stats concerning age and accidents you will probably find that the older age group have the fewest, therefore if you arbitrarilly decide to test them then you put up a convincing argument to regularly test everyone else.
Here's the figures for car driver casualties by age in 2020 (source: https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...icles-and-casualties-tables-for-great-britain)
However, it doesn't tell you the mileage covered by the age groups, and I couldn't find that information. Intuitively, I'd assume that those over 70 cover less than half the average mileage of the younger age groups (not likely to be commuting every day, doing long commutes, travelling on business or being a driver as a job etc.), in which case they are at least as likely to be involved in an accident. And the data is skewed by the testing process taking out those no longer fit to drive, so we don't know how many accidents they would have been involved in as a driver had they not had their licence revoked. Whilst the stats are incomplete to give a full answer to the question "is a driver over 70 more or less likely to be involved in an accident than a younger driver per mile driven", it certainly doesn't support the suggestion that they are less likely.
The only issue I have with testing everyone regularly is the logistics of it - getting through the necessary number of tests a year. Assuming 36 million car drivers (estimate from RAC Foundation's website), and a revalidation test every ten years, then that's 3.6 million tests a year - plus retests for failures, and maybe tests for other license classes, unless you allow a single revalidation to cover all licensed classes.
I like the principle of it if that can be solved; I have done so voluntarily repeatedly for both cars and bikes and undertaken multiple courses on each. I'm currently trying to arrange more training for my team at work, just to be sure skills are up to scratch and polish up any rough points. There's too many drivers who simply don't understand the rules of the road and have suffered skills fade since they last had their driving looked at.
However, it doesn't tell you the mileage covered by the age groups, and I couldn't find that information. Intuitively, I'd assume that those over 70 cover less than half the average mileage of the younger age groups (not likely to be commuting every day, doing long commutes, travelling on business or being a driver as a job etc.), in which case they are at least as likely to be involved in an accident. And the data is skewed by the testing process taking out those no longer fit to drive, so we don't know how many accidents they would have been involved in as a driver had they not had their licence revoked. Whilst the stats are incomplete to give a full answer to the question "is a driver over 70 more or less likely to be involved in an accident than a younger driver per mile driven", it certainly doesn't support the suggestion that they are less likely.
| Under 17 | 90 |
| 17-19 | 4,744 |
| 20-24 | 11,701 |
| 25-29 | 12,110 |
| 30-34 | 13,010 |
| 35-39 | 10,115 |
| 40-49 | 17,442 |
| 50-59 | 14,419 |
| 60-69 | 7,719 |
| 70 and over | 7,117 |
The only issue I have with testing everyone regularly is the logistics of it - getting through the necessary number of tests a year. Assuming 36 million car drivers (estimate from RAC Foundation's website), and a revalidation test every ten years, then that's 3.6 million tests a year - plus retests for failures, and maybe tests for other license classes, unless you allow a single revalidation to cover all licensed classes.
I like the principle of it if that can be solved; I have done so voluntarily repeatedly for both cars and bikes and undertaken multiple courses on each. I'm currently trying to arrange more training for my team at work, just to be sure skills are up to scratch and polish up any rough points. There's too many drivers who simply don't understand the rules of the road and have suffered skills fade since they last had their driving looked at.
Very interesting info', thankyou, but also interesting that you then manipulate the data and introduce lots of could have / would haves in order to support your point of view, just like the arguments for everything else in this world.
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I was trying to give an honest view of incomplete data. The data itself I only manipulated to show the age and totals column, rather than also the break down by sex etc., and gave a link to the source so others can verify it.
I should have also made clear that this is injuries, not accidents - there is no official data that I could quickly find that relates to accidents (as opposed to injuries) per mile for age, nor injuries per mile for age - though it may well exist. I believe I was clear where I was adding my suppositions and interpretations, allowing others to agree or disagree with them, rather than stating them as fact. So feel free to point out where you disagree with them and how you think that changes the view.
All I can see is that, for example, there are fewer 17-19 year drivers injured than 60-69 year olds. Is that because 17 - 19 year olds are safer, or because there are far fewer of them on the roads? That question cannot be answered from these stats, though you could add in the number of licensed drivers in each age group and look at number of injuries per 1000 licence holders.
Even then, that would skew with age - a 17-19 year old with a licence is quite likely to drive regularly. As people age, they may retain their licence but never get behind the wheel (for example I don't believe my father has driven for the last three or four years as his health and ability has seriously declined, but he keeps his licence and is insured on their vehicles in case my mum is incapacitated when they are out together), so the number of accidents per licence holder would be low due to inactive drivers who will therefore never have an injury whilst driving. But again, all supposition.
If someone has data to show that over 70 years are safer drivers, as was mooted by Folkranger, I'd love to see it.
I should have also made clear that this is injuries, not accidents - there is no official data that I could quickly find that relates to accidents (as opposed to injuries) per mile for age, nor injuries per mile for age - though it may well exist. I believe I was clear where I was adding my suppositions and interpretations, allowing others to agree or disagree with them, rather than stating them as fact. So feel free to point out where you disagree with them and how you think that changes the view.
All I can see is that, for example, there are fewer 17-19 year drivers injured than 60-69 year olds. Is that because 17 - 19 year olds are safer, or because there are far fewer of them on the roads? That question cannot be answered from these stats, though you could add in the number of licensed drivers in each age group and look at number of injuries per 1000 licence holders.
Even then, that would skew with age - a 17-19 year old with a licence is quite likely to drive regularly. As people age, they may retain their licence but never get behind the wheel (for example I don't believe my father has driven for the last three or four years as his health and ability has seriously declined, but he keeps his licence and is insured on their vehicles in case my mum is incapacitated when they are out together), so the number of accidents per licence holder would be low due to inactive drivers who will therefore never have an injury whilst driving. But again, all supposition.
If someone has data to show that over 70 years are safer drivers, as was mooted by Folkranger, I'd love to see it.
Lenny HB
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Might be true of just car drivers but me like a lot of Motorhomers still do the same annual mileage I've done all my life.
The difference now is that 90% of my mileage is in the Motorhome and the average trip being 2500 to 3500 miles.
There are always outliers - and it's probably true of quite a number on here that they'll do greater than average mileage. For comparison, I know that my parents have driven less than 300 miles a year between them in the last few years, despite having both a small motorhome and a car. Go back to the 1990s and they would each have been doing 15,000+ miles per year, so 100 times more. between them.
What about the argument that just being on the road creates a risk of accident, so your adjustments for miles driven is not really relevant. As we must rely on averages when assessing risk, the truth is that on average, the drivers posing the biggest risk are those doing the most miles. This could then be categorised by age groups.
I know this starts to get unwieldy but you introduced mileage considerations to prove your point. You can't just consider this when it suits.
I know this starts to get unwieldy but you introduced mileage considerations to prove your point. You can't just consider this when it suits.
Jonno1103
LIFE MEMBER
Road safety had nothing to do with it, if it did everyone, young and old, would have been subject to the same restrictions.
Pre '97 no one sat in a room and completed a theory test in order to progress onward to a road test. The majority of drivers simply carried on regardless... so how did it make our roads any safer?
It didn't. The technology did. ANPR, electronic access to licencing, MOT's and insurance... the traffic police computer which bellows Yabbadabbadooo if you pass it without any of the 3 things above has made our roads safer not whether you're restricted to driving a 3500kg van or not.
Pre '97 no one sat in a room and completed a theory test in order to progress onward to a road test. The majority of drivers simply carried on regardless... so how did it make our roads any safer?
It didn't. The technology did. ANPR, electronic access to licencing, MOT's and insurance... the traffic police computer which bellows Yabbadabbadooo if you pass it without any of the 3 things above has made our roads safer not whether you're restricted to driving a 3500kg van or not.
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Miles driven is an indication of how much someone is one the road, therefore what their risk is, and therefore relevant.
I'm not sure where the disagreement is? I'm introducing mileage as a confounding factor to consider, not to "prove my point", because I'm actually not sure what my point is. Gut feel is that as people get older, and reaction times slow down, and visual/physical impairements come to play then they will be less capable behind the wheel. But is that cancelled out by them driving more slowly, and taking fewer risks (like not pulling out into fast traffic assuming the car has good enough acceleration, but waiting for a big gap instead?).
The risk for a particular person is the number of accidents per mile they have, multiplied by the number of miles they do (big handfuls, there are other factors too). It is relevant to the number of accidents, but how do you then decide what to do. If a person is a very high risk per mile, but does a low number of miles per year, should they retain their licence?
We can say that someone is riskier if they either have more accidents per mile, or if they do more mileage. Someone who has one accident every thousand miles but only does 100 miles a year will have on average one accident every ten years. Someone who has one accident every 100,000 miles (so is a 100 times "safer" driver) but does 200,000 miles a year will have two accidents a year.
So does age make you have more accidents per mile?
Does reduced mileage balance that out?
Overall are you less likely to have an accident in a year if you are over 70 than if you are under?
I said I don't have the figures to work that out, I'm not even sure they exist in official form. We can make guesses, but can't be certain - especially as the medical sign off means that some of the most risky drivers will be taken out of the pool, hence biasing towards the less risky. For mileage, I'm not "considering this when it suits", I'm also stating clearly where I think there are holes in my assumptions.
The figures about have a very large hole in them for considering the relative risk - we don't know how many of each age group are driving.
If the roughly 7k injuries are out of a pool of 10,000 drivers, or out of a pool of 1 million. And how that then compares to other groups.
Taken purely on number of accidents, we could say that under 17 year olds are the safest drivers on the road, as they have by far the fewest accidents, therefore should we let them all have driving licences?
Tu take your last paragraph, under 17's would always be the safest "drivers" ( not motorcycle riders} on the roads, as they are not allowed to drive !! just thinking
Jonno1103
LIFE MEMBER
The U.K roads see 4 fatalities a day and around 60 serious injuries. That's all road types.
When you consider that our roads carry on average 1.3m vehicles every day, they're not a particularly risky place to be.
Consider our population density and road congestion compared to the likes of France ( 9 per day), Germany (7.5 per day), Spain (5 per day) & Italy 6.5 per day).
Germany has some of the strictest driving laws through out Europe. It's hasn't stopped them seeing nearly twice as many fatalities.
France has a zero alcohol tolerance for driving... more then twice the daily fatalities.
It's about standards, not weight.
When you consider that our roads carry on average 1.3m vehicles every day, they're not a particularly risky place to be.
Consider our population density and road congestion compared to the likes of France ( 9 per day), Germany (7.5 per day), Spain (5 per day) & Italy 6.5 per day).
Germany has some of the strictest driving laws through out Europe. It's hasn't stopped them seeing nearly twice as many fatalities.
France has a zero alcohol tolerance for driving... more then twice the daily fatalities.
It's about standards, not weight.
That was a reducto ad absurdum line, demonstrating that the raw accident figures are a bit meaningless unless you try to balance that with something like miles driven. Lies, damn lies and statistics
Obviously those under-17 drivers were doing so illegally, probably joy riding stolen cars.I genuinely have no intention to prove anything here, I was just interested in the "But if you examine the stats concerning age and accidents you will probably find that the older age group have the fewest" line, and wondered what the stats would actually show, as that line only says "probably find". I couldn't find anything particularly conclusive either way, so posted my thoughts to see if anyone could point to other data sources or flaws in thinking. I think it'd be an interesting result either way.
Lenny HB
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But when they have a prang on a de-restricted Autobahn it's often a big one.
Nope, it's the same as the rest of Europe 0.5g/L, also it's not often enforced & when it is the penalties are a lot lower, e.g. for a reading of 0.8/L a €135 fine.
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We probably agree on most but your posts extend beyond my attention span.
Falcon 269
Free Member
That's an interesting point.
I'm one of the 9 out of 10 who tend to accelerate when a truck driver indicates right on motorways, not because I want to stop the trucker pulling out but because too many times I've had truck drivers indicate and almost immediately start to move out, leaving me wondering if they've seen me at all. And I'm not talking about those occasions when I'm close to or in their blind spot.
It often feels like the trucker is bullying his way into my lane because he wants to maintain momentum. I get the reasons why they want to do that but I feel happier zipping ahead of them than having to brake to let them out. The ones who show this 'coming over, get out of the way' approach are frequently the ones who spend the next 2 miles crawling past leaving me and others stuck behind. I guess my biker instincts kick in, too, in that it's usually easier and safer to accelerate away from a situation than brake.
Have to say I agree that the standard of driving in general has deteriorated along with an evaporation of the courtesy you mentioned. I'd be interested in your thoughts because if I'm at fault for some reason, I'd be happy to be corrected.
Sorry, I'll try to make them more trite and superficial in future
You just have.Sorry, I'll try to make them more trite and superficial in future
Well, I can't comment on other drivers behaviour but, in my younger cab happy days when I was employed driving someone else's truck, I was guilty of 2 indicators and I'm coming out.That's an interesting point.
I'm one of the 9 out of 10 who tend to accelerate when a truck driver indicates right on motorways, not because I want to stop the trucker pulling out but because too many times I've had truck drivers indicate and almost immediately start to move out, leaving me wondering if they've seen me at all. And I'm not talking about those occasions when I'm close to or in their blind spot.
It often feels like the trucker is bullying his way into my lane because he wants to maintain momentum. I get the reasons why they want to do that but I feel happier zipping ahead of them than having to brake to let them out. The ones who show this 'coming over, get out of the way' approach are frequently the ones who spend the next 2 miles crawling past leaving me and others stuck behind. I guess my biker instincts kick in, too, in that it's usually easier and safer to accelerate away from a situation than brake.
Have to say I agree that the standard of driving in general has deteriorated along with an evaporation of the courtesy you mentioned. I'd be interested in your thoughts because if I'm at fault for some reason, I'd be happy to be corrected.
Confession out the way and 20 years later, driving my own truck I leave my overtaking manoeuvre until the last minute, just as most truck drivers do and the reason for this is that I just don't have the speed to indicate and pull out too far ahead of the overtake, and if I did it would mean that I'd have a line of traffic behind waiting for me to crawl past the other vehicle.
So, the alternative is to wait until you're almost on top of the other truck you're overtaking and then indicate hopefully you pull out, go past and get back in ASAP.
That's where it becomes infuriating when cars see you indicate and think, as you alluded to doing, "don't want to get stuck behind this lorry" and speed up, resulting in my overtaking manoeuvre being delayed, then subsequently I am having to slow down until its clear to over take or some understanding motorist let's me out. Then because I've lost speed and momentum, the overtake takes longer than it should.
When I'm in my car and a truck wants to overtake I hang back, flash them out and lose seconds off my journey time as a result. So in my opinion, the intolerant and impatient motorist who can't show a bit of understanding is only creating more hazards on the road and isn't gaining anything from acting like that.
I have to admit, if I'm indicating well in advance and a suitable gap arises and I see a car start speeding up to stop me overtaking, I'll pull out anyway cause its not as if they didn't see me, but I don't use that method perse.
However, when I've got an escort car behind me on a dual carriageway or motorway, I'll just tell him on the radio that I need to pull out and he'll stop the cars from overtaking, no messing.
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6
63720
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On a motorway I always know what is beside me. When I want to overtake, and I have a member of the Middle Lane Owners Club beside me, my indicating is not a request for road space it's a declaration of intent to change my position.
Braking technology and safety features have improved vastly over the past 40 years and the laws and regulations needs modifying accordingly. Way back in 1977 I passed my hgv on a 4 wheeler 16 tonner , a few years later I was allowed to drive a 30 tonner without any further exams so rules have and can be changed especially now we are out of the EU
grumps147
LIFE MEMBER
Jonno1103
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I always let HGV's out, waiting a minute or two is no big deal and all traffic continues to flow, It's not as if their speed is such an inconvenience as they can do 65mph on dual carriageways and motorways anyway.That's an interesting point.
I'm one of the 9 out of 10 who tend to accelerate when a truck driver indicates right on motorways, not because I want to stop the trucker pulling out but because too many times I've had truck drivers indicate and almost immediately start to move out, leaving me wondering if they've seen me at all. And I'm not talking about those occasions when I'm close to or in their blind spot.
It often feels like the trucker is bullying his way into my lane because he wants to maintain momentum. I get the reasons why they want to do that but I feel happier zipping ahead of them than having to brake to let them out. The ones who show this 'coming over, get out of the way' approach are frequently the ones who spend the next 2 miles crawling past leaving me and others stuck behind. I guess my biker instincts kick in, too, in that it's usually easier and safer to accelerate away from a situation than brake.
Have to say I agree that the standard of driving in general has deteriorated along with an evaporation of the courtesy you mentioned. I'd be interested in your thoughts because if I'm at fault for some reason, I'd be happy to be corrected.
Thats very considerate although it's 56 mph that we're limited to although some are set at 53, 54 or 55 mph
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