Older Drivers

Hi I am 78 years old my reflexes  are fine I have a car and a moter bike , Touchwood only had one accident in my life I worked until I was 65 why do the young pick on the old ,The young are aggressive  and for that reason a lot never become old they all want to slow down a bit or get an early grave.

I feel the current risk to pedestrians and cyclists is more or less acceptable.

 And certainly your proposals are disproportionate

Howard, you were told wrong.

You can wear glasses, within certain prescripion limits. These limits are more generous for Private Pilots operating with a Class 2 Medical and less generous for Commercial Pilots operating with a Class 1 Medical. They are also slightly more stringent at initial issue and less stringent on subsequent renewal of a Medical.

Dear George,

Your proposal is completely disproporionate.

Why so?

If one walked down the high street the a loaded shotgun, it would certainly be confiscated and destroyed.

A car is no less dangerous than a load shotgun ...

ATB from George

It certainly is not acceptable that humans are killed and permanently injured by motorists in the numbers currently accruing under current legislation.

Basically the motorist has invaded the road and tried to take over, but he was there long after the cyclists and the pedestrian. 

He needs to learn that he is not either God or the Law.

ATB from George

Bad driving does not necessarily correlate with age. I think we would all benefit from frequent reassessment, perhaps with increasing frequency with age. I'd like to see everyone reassessed every five years but the infrastructure doesn't exist. Driving is a privilege IMO. And a frequently abused one.

You seem to be taking - to put it very mildly - a rather black and white position on this, possibly for the purposes of provoking debate.

Out of interest, do you include motorcyclists in the (inherently-evil-psychopathic-murderers) 'motorists' category or the (beleaguered-righteous-pure-innocent) 'cyclists and pedestrians' category?

Your use of the word 'accruing' implies a rise in accident numbers, yet serious accidents on the roads have been going down for some time now: see link below to DfT statistics for 2003-2013 for example.

It is true that the number of cyclists involved in serious accidents has risen, and there may be any number of reasons for this which may or may not involve motorists, but they are the only category for which numbers have risen. You will notice that numbers of pedestrians involved in serious accidents are falling steadily, for example.

Mark

Have they been putting something funny in the ice cream? Why not just crush the drivers themselves and be done with it? It would certainly help the housing crisis.

Society and its laws recognise the difference between murder (deliberate, pre-meditated killing), manslaughter, negligence-resulting in death and carelessness-resulting in death.

It also recognises the difference in potential intent eg between a person carrying a loaded gun in a public place and a person in charge of a vehicle.

Sentencing rules reflect the above differences, even though the outcome, ie a death, is the same.

I wouldn't wish the rules to be changed to merely reflect the outcome.

I doubt if many motorists or lorry drivers, bus drivers or taxi drivers consider themselves to be God or the Law.

Our road network has been developed to suit changing modes of available transport. Society has elected to design and build roads primarily for use by motorised vehicles with provision for pedestrians and, where appropriate, for cyclists. The cost of initial provision plus subsequent maintenance and renewal is more than covered by motorist-related taxation.

I'm sure that cyclists could persuade the government to raise additional funding from the enthusiastic and growing cycling community to fund the provision and maintenance of cyclist-only transport infrastructure, if there was sufficient demand. They could also persuade the government to increase that taxation ten-fold so as to add to the general exchequer for the greater benefit of society as a whole.

I am just one of the few "reasonable" members of this here Forum 

I lived/worked in India for a few years, so i'm sure you can fully understand my views about rickshaw drivers

There are some valid points raised here in my view.

That cyclist injuries and fatalities in the UK have risen against the trend in other categories is most likely due to the fact that there are now more cyclists than previously [in post WW II times] and so the risk of a larger number being hurt is greater - all other factors being equal.

It is also certainly correct that the Law does discriminate in the strength of punishment allotted based on the intention of the person who kills. For example the different between manslaughter and murder. 

The end result is the same but the intention of the killer is different. If a driver kills someone crossing a pedestrian crossing while concentrating on a mobile phone then this is regarded as being less serious than the same driver entering the pedestrian's home and shooting him or her with a pistol. Either way the pedestrian would be dead, but the driver would be treated differently. I do not doubt the validity of this distinction though I do doubt that the difference between the murder [malice aforethought] and the incidental death as the result of failure to concentrate on the job in hand is currently correctly balanced.

It seems to me that the current driver defence of SMIDSY - sorry mate, I did not see you - should be regarded as an admission of guilt rather than a perfectly valid reason for being treated quite lightly in many cases for the damage done. For a personal example concerning my first incident where a motorist side-swiped me coming out of a minor road which did not have priority, I was surprised to find that the Police had no intention to pursue a prosecution, so that the driver would not even have a mark on his licence as a result. I questioned this and was told that minor injuries to cyclists even where it was clearly a case that would most likely - if prosecuted - show complete blame applied to the car driver was considered to be worth more than putting the driver on a correction day course as a routine, and only very severe injury might lead to a prosecution case without exceptional circumstances, such as being drunk in charge of a vehicle. 

In fairness this is a let off, and would leave the impression on the driver that he had done very little wrong. Certainly not something to get worried about - no big reason to improve his standard of driving in future. In reality in this case it seemed to have hardened his view that he had done nothing reprehensible at all. 

In sad fact this guy met a far worse fate than I would have wished for him. He was set down to do a day driver course that would educate him about risks etc. A week before the event his little car was stolen, and consequently he never attended the course, and was then duly prosecuted. I saw him in this period, and I commiserated with him over the loss of his car and the consequences. He looked old, frail and a broken man. I learned that it never came to trial as he died of  a stroke before the Court day. I saw the Lady Police and she told me. Very sad end in my view.

It seems that remorse caught up with him in the end as it were. 

But given how dangerous motor vehicles [from motor-cycles, through personal motor cars, light commercials and mini-coaches, to Heavy Goods Vehicles and Coaches] really are when they meet something much lighter such as pedestrian or cyclist, there needs - especially in the light of growing numbers of cyclists - to be a higher priority given to improving driving standards in the small minority of them who are a genuine fatal risk to other road users. 

This might be achieved in any number of ways. I would propose that certain additional penalties, such as retesting to a very high standard before the driving licence is renewed or regranted is one very suitable method. After all if one faced this, one is going to value it far more, so that one would be very careful to preserve the licence by significantly better and more attentive driving in future.

Also I do believe that confiscating the vehicle in question would be a tremendous incentive to drivers to act responsibility. And the vehicle in question tends to reflect the drivers economic status far more than current fining tariffs allow. A seventeen year old in a Vauxhall Nova is going just as a devastated by its confiscation as a Millionaire having to loose his brand new Rolls.

Perhaps crushing is unsuitable. Perhaps the vehicles should be [depending on age and condition] either crushed or re-sold at public auction such as the Ministry of Defence do with surplus equipment and vehicles where these are deemed suitable for civilian use ...

My point about applying this to company vehicles as well is still valid. Employers ofter pile on the pressure to complete tight and even over tight delivery schedules, and if the driver breaks a few rules to keep up with employer demands then it would seem reasonable that the employer takes some of the hit, if an incident occurs as a result. It would also make employers much more selective of the drivers they employ, which could only be a good thing.

Finally, no Law that follows due process in its prosecution is any problem for good drivers who keep a good level of concentration, do not use mobile phones while driving, keep to the speed limits, and drive within the limitations of their own skill and the handling characteristics of their vehicle. But those who cannot do this, given the great risks to others, should indeed be heavily lent on by the Law to fear their own inadequacies while driving. Firstly they need to appreciate the significance of the responsibilities they take on when driving, and one hardly hears those responsible for injury and fatality incidents admitting that they failed to take sufficient note of these responsibilities. There needs to be a profound shift in attitude in that tiny minority of drivers who really are a risk on the road. As I have observed before, most drivers will not be affected, except that one assumes the small cadre of bad drivers on the road will be a lesser nuisance to other drivers as well. 

On the other hand, nowadays, I ride on the road with huge care because one never knows if the driver one is dealing with is part of the competent majority or one of the tiny proportion of potential killers of the road. 

ATB from George

Pertaining to my post two up, it is clear that this affects older drivers to the degree that their own physical abilities to drive may decline with age, and therefore their responsibility becomes more demanding to account for their own ability to drive safely. 

I doubt if most older drivers are anything like the risk posed by the worst of teenaged drivers for all that. The rates for motor insurance probably reflect this with considerable accuracy.

ATB from George

George

All of your proposals are post-hoc retaliation - if x does this then y follows. Laws do not stop people offending, they simply punish the offender.

The more you want something regulated by law at a financial cost to the individual, the more people will simply not engage with the process.

Dear Lionel,

Even Murder is dealt with in a post hoc fashion. Until an ill action is committed the Law can make no response, ... by definition.

Unless you would have a system of eugenics to guess at who the criminals might be. I would not advocate that, though Sweden did right into the 1970s.

The civilised system is that a person who has allegedly committed an ill action is tested by trial under due process of Law, and if found guilty is punished according to Law. No better system has yet been found in the civilised World.

Specifically with respect to driving in Norway, for decades now there has been a zero tolerance policy concerning drunk driving, and consequently drunk driving offences in Norway are very small in number. The Law was brought in to counter a problem ...

Punishment after the fact is, in reality, effective in a very large proportion of potential cases. It works. It changes socially acceptable norms. It is not a complete cure, but it has a long term effect that is beneficial to blameless society as a whole, however tough it may be for those who refuse to accept societal norms.

And yes, this a starkly black and white response, but only comes confusion from greyness with respect to the Law.

ATB from George

But your proposals above seem to put the punishment before any crime has been committed?

Where?

I have never proposed something ante facto, and would not. That is a fascistic approach which is entirely contrary to my view.

I agree with the heaviest [zero tolerance] approach post facto ... according to due process of the Law, which should be toughened up for certain.

ATB from George

George,

Your various proposals are disproportionate. Perhaps your cycling accidents have left you disproportionately disenchanted with motorists ? I hope I don't detect an element of resentment-lead desire to toughen up the punishment of motorists.

Possibly yes on both counts, but I am hardly in the dispassionate position to pronounce in a dispassionate fashion.

You may have a point. Perhaps I'd have got through my life to date without the three crashes [first in 1977] each time side-swiped by cars emerging from minor junctions, and therefore entirely the drivers' fault each time.

You would think I'd have given the bike up by now, but perhaps I should just join the CTC lobby in Parliament to have motoring on the cyclists' and pedestrians' highway banned.

After all it was the CTC of GB [Cycle Touring Club of Great Britain] that proposed the motorways [where no cyclist of the un-motored variety is allowed] as a way of clearing the existing main roads of motors to allow pedestrians and cyclists a safe passage! Such was the carnage even in the 1930s!

ATB from George

PS: Unfortunately for the unreconstructed manslaugtering type of motorist, however, I survived, and will continue to argue for much more stringent Legal action against irresponsible motorists even given my skewed perspective. It may even become my lifes' work if I become registered partially sighted. Now there is a scary thought for motorists! Me on Qestiontime arguing passionately for legal reform. I might be quite persuasive in reality!