Just watched the re run of Britain's Worst Drivers and Im absolutely appalled.
How on earth can they give the 'most improved' driver amongst this lot new cars? It is ludicrous!
The standard of driving left me speechless to such an extent that Im considering giving up my car because I don't want to meet any of these loons onthe road.
That Arif character needs locking up for his blatant disregard for others. The examiner in the back actually told him to stop so she could get out as she was fearful for her life.
As for the woman who was blind in one eye and the girls who cannot reverse! One person seemed to think it was a laugh to have had over 30 accidents!!
How many of these 'drivers' managed to pass a test is simply beyond me. Compulsory re testing of every driver isnt the answer since it is loons like these who need to be targetted. How we do that I don't know but someone had better come up with an answer soon.
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Glue their hands and feet together..........if that fails, firing squad at dawn.
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Not Silly low fines like this from today's Telegraph. Confiscate their cars I say
Ferrari and Lotus drivers led police on high-speed chase
By Matt Born
(Filed: 22/10/2002)
Two City workers were fined and banned from driving yesterday after leading police on a high-speed chase through London in their high-performance sports cars.
The highly-paid IT consultants, one in a Ferrari and the other in a Lotus, sped around blind bends and roundabouts, ran a red light and accelerated so fast over a bridge that officers were unable to get a reading of how fast they were going, Southwark Crown Court was told.
At one point, the unmarked police car following them reached 86 mph on a busy road, only for the two sports cars to accelerate again and leave it trailing in their wake.
Brian Hooper, 28, who owned the Ferrari, and Jonathon Waring, 21, who was driving his Lotus, were convicted of careless driving last year, despite claiming that they thought the unmarked black Vauxhall Omega following them contained would-be carjackers.
Judge Stephen Robbins disqualified Waring, who had six points on his licence for previous speeding offences, for six months. Hooper was banned for six weeks.
He fined them each £500 and ordered them to pay £800 towards prosecution costs, saying: "You both drove at speeds that demonstrated little consideration for other road users."
The judge also ordered both to pay their defence
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More traffic police and sentences that would act as a real deterrant are the best way to alter the habits of those who drive dangerously. It's been said to the point where it's got a bit boring on here, but the last decade has seen the targeting of speeding drivers become a priority, mainly so that tangible results can be shown to prove that "Something is being done"
The dangerous drivers meanwhile, get away with all sorts of suicidal antics because of the policy of most police forces in reducing or disbanding their traffic units. Catch the bad ones, ban them, and make it an automatic jail sentence for anyone driving whilst disqualified.
There might be a more subtle answer to the problem, but I can't think of one.
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After passing initial test as now, make it compulsory to pass a higher standard of test (e.g. IAM advanced test) after, say, 2 years. Failure to do so means re-sit of initial test. Then periodic re-tests (5 years, or more frequent for those convicted of motoring offences). Stop giving bad drivers the option of a course and/or re-test instead of a fine and/or ban - give them the lot. Uninsured or unlicensed drivers - take their cars off them and auction them, paying for costs and compensation to anyone affected by their offence.
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How about forcing bad drivers to have to drive in particularly awful vehicles? Bright yellow FSO Polonezs that can't accelerate so they will have great difficulty in speeding or doing any fast lane changing etc. Preferably with a large 'W' for wally painted on the panels so other drivers will know to look out for them.
Another more serious approach would be some sort of enforced education process. Something like a nice ride in a simulator which puts them through killing someone because of their driving or maybe even spending some time with paramedics collecting bits after serious road accidents or talking to drivers of similar backgrounds who have ended up mangled as a consequence of their own recklessness.
The other side of the coin would be to have some sort of reward system for pursuing driving excellence. Some sort of scheme where drivers who were of a good enough standard would be allowed to exceed speed limits on dual carriageways/motorways if the conditions were right so they would benefit from improved journey times.
teabelly
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I like your ideas, teabelly!
My favorite bumper sticker here in Jordan is:
Warning: I drive as bad as you do.
(we've got one stuck on the tailgate of our rally car).
CMark
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Disqualification: many drive unqualified
Fines: do not pay/can't
Answer: any car they drive is automatically taken away and confiscated.
Full stop.. (unless stolen).
That should stop them...
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Were they for real??.
Or had they been to RADA.
Surely no-one could be that bad and be proud of it.
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"Answer: any car they drive is automatically taken away and confiscated."
Whilst superficially attractive, the following comes to mind:
1. A consiscated car will be replaced within days by another
2. I dislike a sentence which is of variable cost due to circumstances. i.e. one confiscated car may be worth £100, another £10,000. Yet the offences nay be similar.
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This has been winding me up all w/e. Almost every channel has these programmes which seem to find people who are incapable of driving.
IMHO these people should be banned using the evidence on film. Its like the Japanese guy and his F40 who videoed himself doing 198mph on the pubic highways. Japenese police found the video on sale and busted him.
As for giving a car to the most improve driver, haah. They should give the licence back to the most improved driver (if competent enough) and ban all the others for good.
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Well lets chnage the sentence then "once caught the driven car is confiscated, any other cars owned are confiscated and he/she is banned and when seen driving a car is automatically jailed and car is confiscated."
Who cares about fairness? Losing your car is enough.. unless we fine everyone £1million:-)
That's fair!
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I agree with Tom. Increased penalties and enforcement. Compulsory advanced driving lessons for those with an accident history. And yes this has all been said before.
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One effect of many of these programmes has actually been to glamourise dangerous driving. When discussing these with teenage pupils (Male, mostly) their attitude tends more to admiration of the yobs who led the police a merry dance for umpteen miles than condemnation.
To the young mind, the outlaw is cool, authority ain't. God knows how you change that one.
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Confiscation is a great idea, except that you can buy a (probably unroadworthy) car at auction for less than the price of one driving lesson. It's the same with booze cruises - no-one is going to risk a £15k Merc when they can get just as much in the back of a £150 Sierra.
The only way forward is heavy fines and ultimately prison for those who don't have a licence or insurance. If you don't have either, making it harder to get one via points and loaded premiums is only going to discourage you further.
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One effect of many of these programmes has actually been to glamourise dangerous driving. When discussing these with teenage pupils (Male, mostly) their attitude tends more to admiration of the yobs who led the police a merry dance for umpteen miles than condemnation. To the young mind, the outlaw is cool, authority ain't. God knows how you change that one.
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Tom,what you say is the sad truth. And as the mother of 2 young sons, it scares the hell out of me that they may grow up to become the victims of such an attitude.
Surely we've got to have heavier penalties, whether it be higher fines (useless if the person has no income), or quicker confiscation of the licence, or something else.
How many of these yobs that you describe would be proud to regale their friends with tales of their lost licence? Sadly, I think, quite a few, and many of those would quite happily drive licenceless anyway.
Just what is the answer?
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Birch them and put them in the Army that's what I say. Hold on though, the army doesn't want them!
Perhaps they could make new roads?
That's it, get all the rubbush drivers, all the people that drive straight into disabled bays at the supermarket (that woman down the community centre for a start - there's definately nothing wrong with her) all the people that drive with fog lights on when it's not foggy, all the BMW drivers that think they own the centre and fast lane (that's all BMW drivers) all those people that think the third lane is the fast lane - when it isn't a fast lane at all (hold on, scratch that last one)
Take them all and put them end to end and make new roads out of them. that's what I say.
PS and all the people that think Driven is good - when it's not, it's really rubbish.
Oh, and people who rant a lot - can't stand them!
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An important point was made earlier on in this thread and it has been said many time before on this board but it is worth repeating and that is the Police have disappeared from the roads. You can now do anything you want except speed past a speed, sorry 'safety', camera including I assume drink driving and you have virtually no chance of being caught.
Yes speed in the wrong place can kill but so can all manner of other things that are difficult to police and time consuming to prove.
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The government's answer is to progressively reduce every speed limit until we get down to walking pace, at which point the man with the red flag will be reintroduced.
I jest not, hence no smiley!
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I think a limit on the number of times someone can take their driving test should be applied. You see so many stories of people taking upwards of 5, 10, 15 tests and it is only pure luck that they eventually pass. I think you should get only 3 stabs at it and then no more. If you haven't passed by the third try then you're obviously not cut out to be a driver.
BTW, I passed on the third try.
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I know where you are coming from but shouldn't that be if you don't pass first time thats it :-)
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I don't think re testing every 5 years or so or, having to sit the IAM test within 2 years (they aren't geared up for the numbers anyway!) would be of any benefit.
Bad drivers need to be targetted. Going for everyone else will use valuable resources on the decent drivers anyway.
I think the best idea is similar to making those caught should have to drive severely restricted cars ie one not capable of doing more than 30mph.
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It would be better to have restricted cars that contained gps and road map information so that they were always restricted to the speed limit, lower in the rain to encourage better habits and if radar capable of detecting if they were too close to other vehicles for the speed they were doing were added they wouldn't be able to tailgate either. If you could add some device that knew where the centre line was in the road then you could prohibit them from over taking too. If you wanted to restrict them to 30 then it would be the least disruptive to others if the car wouldn't go on a road with a speed limit above about 40.
Imagine the havoc if someone did 30 mph down a motorway or duel carriageway. I saw some twit teaching their offspring to drive in a large Toyota Carina doing 30 in a 50 at the weekend in the pooring rain and in heavy traffic. They nearly precipitated several accidents as people were getting so sick of sitting behind them and had to barge into the outer lane to get past. That would have just about been acceptable if they had had the intelligence to pull off before the 70 mph dual carriageway, they had two opportunities to do so but carried onto the carriageway anyway. They didn't speed up beyond 35 on the dual carriageway either.
teabelly
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I wouldn't suggest the IAM administer the test, just that a test of the same standard is made compulsory. At least this, with re-testing, might stop bad drivers getting out there in the first place and limit the bad habits developed by those who pass their test by being a "good" driver for one day in their life, then are never re-assessed until they prove just how bad they are by beign disaqualified.
The good drivers would have no hassle apart from a modest fee to re-sit the test every few years.
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Cabsmunk,
The dodderer who mildly irritates you by doing 40 in a 60 limit probably passed on the fifth attempt.
The confident driver of the high powered car who cuts you up and forces you off the motorway was probably a first time pass.
The ability to learn quickly has no bearing on the future safety record of any driver.
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