I've had two accidents. One occurred at sub 20mph in relatively slow traffic. The other occurred whilst the car was parked up. In neither accident was the bhp of any car relevant. I would also consider a three-step license ie provisional for learning to drive, probationary for the first 1-2 years and full. To get full license, you must do some form of pass plus. Your car is limited (in bhp? size?) up until that point.

Car BHP

This has been used for motorcycles for some time so no issues there – although I would use bhp / ton rather than just bhp.
As for the modification – if you modify the car and change its bhp you need to advise your insurance company – if you don’t it invalidates your insurance.


Eye Test
The 20m eye test misses tunnel and similar eye problems – I think this should eb done every few years as especially for elder people they can not notice how bad their eyes have become

Re-test
Again I agree – although I say your licence should last for 10 years – you can re-tests at any time and if you fail you keep your current licence until it expires
. Many people would then re-test after 9 years, probably fail due to the bad habits they had picked up, have some lessons and then re-test and pass. Without allowing people top keep their licence if they fail could end up with lts of people losing their job if they need to drive to work / drive for a living

At the moment, as far as I'm aware, any undeclared modification (like putting winter tyres on) can be cause to invalidating your insurance.

The performance difference between a lower and higher powered motorcycle is much more marked than in a car. It's also a lot easier to kill yourself with a motorcycle and I think fast bikes are generally a lot cheaper to buy and run than any 200bhp+ car I can think of. <Tangent> Which btw, how many people really have access to 200+ cars?? Pretty much every hot hatch ever, until VERY recently came in around 200 or under and the most popular transverse-mount FF cars in the UK are rarely available with such power. Which leaves just German execmobiles, plenty of which have lots more driving aids (Quattro, ESP, computerised suspension etc.) than your average Focus etc. and they're way too expensive for inexperienced drivers to get hold of usually. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see it... </tangent>

As I said, the issue here is not just one driver, or one car. It's the sheer volume of people using our crowded system.

Making mistakes is a crucial component of learning by doing (which is the fastest way to learn). So we need to allow for those mistakes and make them less costly where possible.

Mine's just over 200BHP FF. Not Focus price but not M3 price either.


The single biggest factors in accident statistics are age and gender. The quickest way to have the biggest impact on driving accident statistics is to raise the age at which people are legally able to drive without supervision. Yes, you're putting the 'threshold of experience' back but the bare fact is an inexperienced 17 year old is more likely to have an accident than an inexperienced 25 year old. That just falls out of the numbers. Whether that's an acceptable measure nor not...

As it stands, what's keeping younger drivers off the road isn't legislation, it's cost. Insurance cost specifically.

Just over, ok. But what's the difference between 180 and 220 in everyday usage? They're both pretty damn quick and on the verge of what's manageable in FF. I just don't buy bhp as a differentiator. At 20, I bought a Cavalier with 115 and was able to do 0-60 in 10 secs and top out at 120+ (which I did try once). That car was every bit as dangerous when I first got at as anything with 200+. Yet equally safe once I got more experience.

You're right about the age and gender thing. And assuming raising it to 18 would seem pointless. 21 seems the obvious measure were we to go down that road. But what if we simply required supervised driving until 20/21? Does that work?

Or a neck test. If you can't turn your head to check your blind spot, no license.

Indeed. My car had 109 BHP when it was new (much less now) and it was reasonable quick off the mark. Not sporty, but by no means slugish. I think the official 0-60 was 10.0 seconds.

If you're good enough, you'll pass so what's the problem?

Quite easy really. All new cars have to declare their power output. Any power or drivetrain mods require a trip to the council dyno.

After having done 50k+ in two years on the M1, I can safely say that the most crashed vehicles I have seen have been BMWs and Audis. I am yet to see a crashed Yaris or Matiz.

I am also yet to see a Traffic Policeman pull anyone over.


I can read a number plate at 20m - passed that bit without a problem.

I also have to wear glasses all day because I can't see properly. I can see quite clearly at around 20m but out at 50m, I'm blind as a bat. Also much closer than about 10m, my sight becomes fairly rudimentary.


Cardio-pulmonary troubles that might affect someone driving a 700bhp car on an unrestricted motorway for instance?

But yes, you're correct: "All licences to be subject to regular medical check-up". After all, we're all supposed to be going for one anyway; we might as well give people a reason to go.


Yes, there's scope for fraud - no doubt. But most people are honest and most driving instructors will want to make sure those items are taught properly.

All I'm looking at is how to increase the general level of driving skill.


They're fine if you're the one using them but if you're driving the other way, particularly over the crest of a hill, they're dazzly little bar-stewards.

And I am yet to see a Land Rover Evoque with properly adjusted xenons.


In which case you'd have trouble getting caught, surely

Seriously though, what I meant to write was "The incorrect use of indicators (or non-use where necessary)..."


Again, my fault.

What I meant to write was "Unecessary use of rear fog lamps..."


True enough - if God were to give the world an enema, he'd insert it in Northampton.

And in the process made 'let people drive' one of the most expensive activities in UK legislation. Medical tests? Seriously? Do you not know how overworked the front line medical services in the UK are anyway? There are, what, tens of millions of people legally able to drive in the UK. Who are going to perform these extra driving tests, retests and medical qualifications? Who is going to administer it all? You can just massively multiply the administrative burden and it not cost anything.

If everyone drove to their test standard we'd be OK. But we don't. And none of the stuff you've suggested solves the fact that people on their own with nobody examining them drive badly because people are lazy and careless. No test, practical, theoretical or medical, is going to make a damn of difference to that because it's fundamental human nature. The only ways we are going to significantly reduce accident statistics are to ban large chunks of the driving population en masse or get fully automated vehicles.

You cannot force people to be good drivers unless you sit with them every minute they're on the road. So automated cars it is.

These are all tests that everybody is encouraged to have every year or couple of years anyway - these tests are already supposed to be happening. To have a doctor/optometrist sign a certificate every 10 years for a routine test that's supposed to be performed every two should not be particularly onerous, either in time or cost. The fact that the NHS funding & structure is hilarious is not a reason to say, "Oh sod it, let's do nothing about the standard of driving".

Besides which, the practical test fee could simply be increased from the current £75 to £125. After all, if you can't afford that, you can't afford to drive anyway.


No - admitted. However, what you can do is try to mitigate some of the worst aspects of what is currently happening.

For instance, almost nobody on the motorways has had even a single minute of training of how to drive on a motorway. We then sit and wonder why people have accidents on motorways, why they drive like c*nts and why we're stuck in traffic. Also, very few Britons have had training in how to drive at night or in inclement weather. Add in the lack of motorway training and a cold, wet, dark M25 can quickly become a daunting or dangerous place.


By arguing for regular re-testing, that's exactly what I'm arguing for.

After all, the most generous test centre (Ballater) has a pass rate of 77.2% - which means that 22.8% fail. Most centres have a failures somewhere between 40% and 50 %. Assuming for the sake of argument that the re-test failure were just 10%, then ten per cent of "tens of millions" is "millions".

Here in Germany they ran a bunch of documentaries on the bad drivers. What was interesting was getting people to voluntarily retake their tests. They took teenagers, some in 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.

The teenagers were the only ones that were safe and managed to pass their tests. The other age groups failed the theory tests, often not being able to identify standard road signs.

In the practical most had poor lane discipline, didn't read road signs properly, and therefore were driving too fast, made illegal turns or cut up other drivers, because they didn't see they had to give way.

As to post 200bhp cars, my old car was 340bph and cost me less than 100 quid per bhp. And that didn't have any electrical aid - it did have a limited slip differential, but that was it. The tzres were also like Bakelite, compared to modern tyres.

My own ideas for updating the driving test
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... uggestions