Raise UK Driving Age to 25 and Retest Every Five Years
A report in last week’s Guardian newspaper highlighted how an alarming number of drivers on Britain’s roads don’t know the meaning of various common road signs. Motorists fail to recognise road signs.
Apparently around two thirds (67%) of drivers were unable to identify the sign indicating a zebra crossing. Apparently only 12% of the 2000 motorists surveyed actually knew the meaning of the eight signs they were tested on.
If you want to test yourself have a go at the Guardian’s online road sign quiz.
Now I’m going to blow my own trumpet a little as I got them all correct. How did you do?
One of the reasons cited for the appalling performance amongst the drivers surveyed is that drivers don’t refresh their knowledge of road signs after taking their driving tests. This has provided ammunition to those campaigning for compulsory re-tests for those convicted of traffic offences and those who have been driving for more than a certain number of years.
An aspect of this survey which was not reported, but which I would find interesting, is the contrast between male and female drivers. Do male drivers have better knowledge of road signs than women? Many other traffic related statistics suggest that men are by far the worst drivers with 82% of those found guilty of speeding offences being male and 94% of those convicted of causing death by dangerous driving being male.
The growing UK personal car leasing market is making powerful cars more accessible to the most accident prone group of drivers, young men. Young drivers have a far higher risk of being involved in an accident than older drivers. Statistics show that an 18 year old is more than three times as likely to be involved in an accident and young male drivers have significantly higher accident rates than young female drivers.
Some people argue that the solution to these road safety issues is simple. Don’t allow young people onto the roads until they are at least 25 years old and then retest everybody every five years. What would you do?
Zac from Nemaslug Slug Killer wrote,
I’m not certain how workable raising the driving age to 25 is, due to large areas of the UK that have almost non existant public transport.
As for the compulsory retests, I would be in favour of a system similar to that used for civil pilots where a “check flight” is required every 2 years. This isn’t as formal as a test but allows any bad habbits that are developing to be addressed early by a suitably qualified instructor.
Link | May 28th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
mechanical engineering ebook wrote,
I agree with you, retest every 5 years has main purpose to introduce a new rule of driving which may be changed in duration of five years
Link | May 29th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Hip Hop wrote,
I think UK is too rigorous with their laws and that make strange trends starts. I drive since 16 and I already know all the signs! Pay attention drivers, we don’t want more accidents!
Link | June 12th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
ade wrote,
Hey, what a great idea – why not make re-taking your o-levels every 10 years compulsory too….
Link | December 19th, 2009 at 7:53 pm