driving age

Originally Posted by 454697819

nope.... change what they can drive, its worked on bikes apparently

Originally Posted by G

An age change would not change a damn thing.

Changing what they can drive probably wouldn't either, you can get yourself in to just as much trouble in a 1.1 106 or 206 as you can in daddys' BMW 3 series.

Infact of all the deaths locally here in the last year most have been in small engine cars...

The BIG difference was there was normally multiple death because the young drivers had 4 of their mates in the car and were showing off or being egged on.

The best change they could make would be to the rules like they do in Ireland.

P (r) plater for 1 year, restricted passenger numbers and limited to driving between certain times, like not after 10pm when most young people are messing around in cars and crash.

I think a capacity limit would work. Most kids get killed in small engined cars because that's what they were driving at the time. That doesn't mean the same driver wouldn't have crashed sooner if he had access to a more powerful car.

Insurance does this for us to a certain extent, but a 23 year old could have got full no claims, be employed in a nice job, and buy a Subaru WRX. I come from shall we say a "privileged" background and guys at my private school sixth form had MR2's, etc. Some had 2CV's. I can tell you who did more wrapping round trees! One guy wrote his MR2 off three times and daddy just kept buying a new one and paying the insurance.

Powerful cars can arrive at the next corner at a untenable speed, regardless of how much momentum they already have, which means that they'd be more likely to crash on more corners. Going fast in a small car requires getting the speed up and keeping it there. A car that stuggles to get up to 80-90mph on a country road and needs momentum to keep it there, is less dangerous in the hands of a 17yr old, than a car that can get up to 120mph with no effort at all.

Limiting passenger numbers and times of day would be good too.

Originally Posted by Red Herring

Not if you're on a bike they're not. Yes you are less likely to have a crash on a motorway, but if you do you're far more likely to be killed, usually because you get run over by something else.

Surely if there is considerably less risk of having an accident, then all things considered then it's safer?

How do you arrive at a conclusion on these things without statistics? ie: airplane is the safest way to travel, until it drops out of the sky and then your dead for sure = same principal, all things considered the plane is safest.

Or your three times more likely to be involved in an accident in Spain than in the UK, therefore Spain is more dangerous.

What do the statistics say, do more riders get killed on motorways than on A roads?

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Limiting passenger numbers and times of day would be good too.

I can't see any advantage to limiting times of day... it's ridiculous.

Many young people have bar jobs, you want to put people in a vulnerable position walking home at 3am? Mental, the very idea is a complete confirmation of the current government attitude of "punish everyone for a minority action". You really want to think like those knee-jerking left wing idiots sticking their noses into every facet of life?

Young people may be likely to hit a tree at 10pm... however there's less chance of wiping out into a bus stop full of kids than at 10am.

Like a car full of 'stanis around here... some honda civic RRR thing, 5 of them in the car, 16-19, all stoned, 90mph into a wall. Unbleedinlucky. Would they have paid any attention to a curfew? No chance.


That's one of the very few knee jerk reactions I've read on here that actually boils my p*ss.

Passenger numbers and times would probobly cause more harm than good.
i work shifts, and im regularly coming home after 10 at night and 6 in the morning, and i cant walk i work 30 miles away from home. Plus we do a lift share scheme at work, and il be in on this when ive passed me test so limiting passenger numbers would cause problems aswel. And i know alot of younger people are in the same situation. Like YC said doin that would be a case of punishing all cause a few broke teh "rules"

Originally Posted by Nij

Discuss
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6904821.stm

I have a 19 year old daughter who's been driving for a year now, still waiting for her first prang and a reasonable driver but, I am still terified that she might end up being "a bunch of flowers" by the side of the road. So, as a parent I think I'm in favour of the proposed changes.

Absolute cobblers.

In that case you may as well raise the age to 50, or raise it to "until both parents are dead and buried", because if you have those worries now, you'll have them forever more.

There's only so much "think of the children" crap I can take, and it's half the reason why this country is full of useless young tossers who can't do a sodding thing for themselves. I agree that kids should be kids and sheltering them from certain things is normal parental behaviour, but let them grow up once they are old enough to support themselves, for christ's sake.

EDIT - By the way, I say this as the father of four kids, one of whom had his first driving lesson today, on his 17th birthday. The other three are girls aged 18, 20 and 28, who all have their own cars and the eldest one has just traded a GSXR600 K8 against a brand new GSXR750.

[yorkie_chris]

Jesus, 24 posts and noone has said it yet.

Pics of daughter

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

I can't see any advantage to limiting times of day... it's ridiculous.

Many young people have bar jobs, you want to put people in a vulnerable position walking home at 3am? Mental, the very idea is a complete confirmation of the current government attitude of "punish everyone for a minority action". You really want to think like those knee-jerking left wing idiots sticking their noses into every facet of life?

Young people may be likely to hit a tree at 10pm... however there's less chance of wiping out into a bus stop full of kids than at 10am.

Like a car full of 'stanis around here... some honda civic RRR thing, 5 of them in the car, 16-19, all stoned, 90mph into a wall. Unbleedinlucky. Would they have paid any attention to a curfew? No chance.


That's one of the very few knee jerk reactions I've read on here that actually boils my p*ss.

You're going to have a sore d1ck for a while if you get boiled p*ss!

I meant limitation on number of passengers at certain times of day. That wouldn't stop bar staff getting home from work, or car sharing during the day.

Other European countries have a limitation on the number of passengers whilst on the equivalent of P plates at any time of day, and have done for years, and see less youngsters having accidents than us, so it's not a knee jerk reaction, it's a proven methodology.

As for a bunch of kids in a Civic RRR. Do you see them driving along whilst smoking a huge obvious splif or resting a can of beer on the windowsill? No, because they know they would get stopped by the cops if they did anything so blatantly visible. If no rear seat passengers after 10pm was a law, that would be something blatantly visible to the cops too. If they did ignore it it may mean they get pulled before they hit the brick wall (even if for some it wouldn't be a bad thing).

I know your very liberal Chris, and I don't want to see unnecessary laws, half the new laws that get made in this country/EU are b0ll0cks, like the size of a flippin' banana (!), but there's some things we are pretty antiquated on and young drivers is one of them. As much as my parents managed to teach me to be sensible, like wearing a condom, no amount of lectures would slow me down on a bike or in a car, it took accidents for that to happen, and I have only really stopped racing around in the last 5-8 years (I'm 34).

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

As for a bunch of kids in a Civic RRR. Do you see them driving along whilst smoking a huge obvious splif or resting a can of beer on the windowsill? No, because they know they would get stopped by the cops if they did anything so blatantly visible.

Haven't been to Bradford or around the dark areas of Halifax recently have you?

Originally Posted by Red Herring

Not if you're on a bike they're not. Yes you are less likely to have a crash on a motorway, but if you do you're far more likely to be killed, usually because you get run over by something else.

+1
Busy motorways give me seriously big eyes sometimes... One tumble and the beemer on your bumper's gonna be all over your @ss!!

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Surely if there is considerably less risk of having an accident, then all things considered then it's safer?

How do you arrive at a conclusion on these things without statistics? ie: airplane is the safest way to travel, until it drops out of the sky and then your dead for sure = same principal, all things considered the plane is safest.

Or your three times more likely to be involved in an accident in Spain than in the UK, therefore Spain is more dangerous.

What do the statistics say, do more riders get killed on motorways than on A roads?

I do know that if I were to have a crash on an average single carriageway then there is a chance I might just slide, but most likely I'll end up against some roadside furniture that may or may not do me in, depending on what it is. It might be a tree, but then again it might just be a grassy verge...
If on the other hand I come off on a Motorway the most likely cause is from hitting debris in the carriageway and if that happens it's going to be at speed, and I'm either going to go through the shredder that makes up the central barrier, or down the carriageway where I'll be on offer to the next vehicle down the road.

Statistics, who knows. They can generally be slanted to tell you what you want to hear depending on what you ask of them. I do know from personal experience that I have dealt with literally dozens of motorcycle offs on single cariageway roads where the rider has walked away (but not always), but every single one I've been to on a motorway has been fatal for the rider involved. (If you want another statistic over half the emergency calls the police deal with on the motorway network involve some kind of debris. Think about that next time your flat out up the third lane in the middle of the night....)

Originally Posted by Red Herring

(If you want another statistic over half the emergency calls the police deal with on the motorway network involve some kind of debris. Think about that next time your flat out up the third lane in the middle of the night....)

I know that one, I do about 35-40k a year between the car and two bikes, and I phone in to report a significant and dangerous piece of debris about 2-3 times a year

The last piece of 'debris' I came across was a broken down Mercedes on this left hand bend
http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&hq...98.59,,0,12.76
which was stationary in lane 2 though with it's right wheels over the white line, and with it's indian family of passengers milling around the carriageway, one woman standing on the white line between lane 1 and 2, casually looking at the broken down car. I was doing 75 mph (110 ft per second), in lane 2 when I came round the bend. If I'd being doing 90mph, she'd probably be dead.