PROPOSAL TO RAISE DRIVING LICENSE AGE

[Bruce Tuncks]

In NSW...  21 is the age proposed.

It makes me grumpy, because there are lots of kids who are quite safe at 17 and others who are never going to be safe. They could be sorted by a test which involved some understanding of the forces involved.  If you don't have the mental capacity to understand , for example, centrifugal force, then you should not be driving.

Alas, this is unlikely to happen because the PC lot have a warped view of reality. 

[onetrack]

Seventeen-year old brains are still developing, and their decision making is quite often downright stupid choices. Re the Buxton crash with its terrible number of fatalities, there's a limit to the number of passengers a P-plater can carry in their vehicle - but I see where this rule varies in its details between States. All the States have timing for that rule which limits the number of passengers at night, I believe the rule should apply full-time.

 

By far the greatest requirement for novice drivers is to weed out the reckless and careless ones, and to stop family members from training other family members in driving skills. This technique only transfers bad family driving habits.

 

Schlumberger, the drilling company, has one of the best driving instructional courses I have ever encountered. The trainers play the part of idiotic passengers who turn up the radio and pull on the handbrake unexpectedly, thus showing drivers that they are in charge of a group in their vehicle, that has to be under their control to ensure safe driving - not a lot different to a pilot, really.

[facthunter]

Knee Jerk reaction to a single event.  Not logical. Nev

[Yenn]

Absolutely ridiculous. I have for years been saying that so long as you are big enough to reach the pedals and control a cat you should be able to train for a licence and hold one. If a 14 year old boy is driving a car, he is far less likely to do something silly than a 17 year old.

I started driving early on the farm, but I didn't get a licence until I was 18, due to not having a car. The first licence I got was for tracked vehicles, namely the bren gun carrier, but I was driving all sorts of vehicles on army land rather than roads. I got licences for everything bar invalid carriage and road roller soon after the first one and took the test in an AEC Matador.

I have seen many men trained by proffessional  driving instructors who have little idea of decision making and poor judgement.

[red750]

Got mine when I was 22, when I could afford a second-hand car.

[old man emu]

Bloody Internet connection! This is my third go at posting in this thread.

 

Driver education should be part of the High School curriculum as much are Personal Health & Development. Driving is an essential life skill

 

The Basic Driver Course for NSW Police took ten days when I did it. There are ten weeks in a school term. Most kids nick off on sports afternoon.  Make attendance at driver training compulsory. At least by the end of Year 10 they will be ready to get a Learner's Permit and start to gain experience driving in traffic. Silly me! That would involve expenditure in something that would produce a tangible result from the Education System.

[willedoo]

I was driving a semi trailer for a living when I was eighteen. I guess it's easy enough when you grow up on a farm and drive trucks and tractors as soon as you can reach the pedals. I don't know if it's different on farms these days, but that's how it was when I was growing up.

[old man emu]

Farm kids can operate vehicles. And farm kids are just as likely as city kids to hoon around. Probably not as much since farm kids don't live inside playing Grand Theft Auto all their lives. That's where kids experience situations which aren't deadly on an iPad, but are on an iNterstate.

 

Strewth! OME on about banning entertainment stuff from the USA again.

[Marty_d]

Driving as a life skill - depends where you are.

 

I'm in a rural area where the nearest bus stop is 5km away.  All our neighbour's kids, who are hitting 17/18, all got their L plates at 16 because they really do need to drive.

However if you're in a city, it's more optional.  Plenty of areas where public transport is an easy walk away so young people aren't bothering to learn until later.

[nomadpete]

This conversation is pointless, as by the time any well intentioned changes can be implemented, autonomous vehicles will make driving skills redundant. And making car ownership unneccessary for city folk.

[old man emu]

10 hours ago, Marty_d said:

However if you're in a city, it's more optional.  Plenty of areas where public transport is an easy walk away so young people aren't bothering to learn until later.

Not quite. Public transport in the suburbs is not efficient. That's why the morning Pak Hour Rush starts at 5:00 and goes to 10.00. It is true that "getting your Ps" is no longer high on suburban kids' To Do lists. I don't know why.

[red750]

[onetrack]

The authorities won't be able to keep up with the demand for "D" plates, there are hundreds of thousands of them, and they don't all drive cars, either. E-scooter riders are the latest ones to need "D" plates.

[willedoo]

If you combine a brainless organic mass with anything on wheels you'll have problems.

[Yenn]

Within 25km of a city centre where I live public transport is non existent, except for the school bus. A car is essential for everything. This means that young people need a licence as soon as possible and they already drive an old bomb down to the property gate to catch their school bus.

[old man emu]

16 minutes ago, Yenn said:

they already drive an old bomb down to the property gate

I do not deny that whoever is doing the driving of that vehicle can "operate" the vehicle in that environment, but do they have the skills to navigate the traffic in the centre of the city? 

 

I was giving this topic some thought today as I drove the 65 km from Dubbo to Gilgandra. The design of the road meant that very few steering inputs were required. Speed control was managed by my cruise control unit. All I had to do was sit there and be me - fat, dumb and happy. This is what the kids in my area experience in the early years of their driving. Some won't even drive in Dubbo traffic. When these kids move away to study in the big cities, or for work, they are a danger to themselves and others in that traffic environment.

 

That's why I say that they must be given driver education in Year 9, the year before they can obtain a Learner's Permit. And that driver education needs to concentrate on three factors : The Driver; The Vehicle, and The Environment of the Road. If they have studied those factors, then they are prepared to experience operating a vehicle on a public road.

[nomadpete]

6 hours ago, onetrack said:

E-scooter riders are the latest ones to need "D" plates.

Darwinian natural selection should eventually ensure that surviving scooter riders will be better behaved.

[red750]

We were discussing this at the Men's Shed on Friday. A number of the men, retired gents, say they have difficulty driving in todays traffic, and they have driven for years. Round-abouts give some the heeby jeebies, others don't like right turns and prefer to do a series of left turns and go around the block. A lot of people cannot handle 'hook turns' in Melbourne where the tram has right-of way in the middle of the road, and a right turn is made by pulling over to the left and turning when the lights change. If you watch the dash-cam footage on the news, so many drivers barrel through an intersection as if they are out on a back road in Woop Woop, or take a corner far too fast and overshoot, colliding with other cars or ploughing into a house. Is it any wonder they come to grief, at the expense of others, life included.

[pmccarthy]

On the edge of our country town, hoons do burnouts every weekend. They drive in circles and destroy their tyres and the road. This is not just youthful ignorance, it is wanton and deliberate vandalism. I would lock them up for a good term.

[red750]

It's why you have to grip your dentures and fasten your bra straps in Melbournes suburban streets - because of all the speed humps.

 

[spacesailor]

OH

You mean the " Driver Annoying Strips " ,

Better nane is " Hoon Jumping Strips ".

Great when they put the front wheels on it , rev the guts out & drop the clutch.

I prefer to honk the horn whenever bumping over " traffic calming strip .

I,m annoyed, so annoy the neibours .

PS  I started driving when 14 ! , But it took another country & 15 ish years to pass that Bureaucratic test .

spacesailor

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

This may give reason why younger people are no loger getting licenses in the numbers they used to. Cost, and tech, basically: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-06/young-people-less-likely-to-get-a-driver27s-license/6002600

 

Still, because of the numbers involvled, driver education, including practical lessons, should be at least an elective in senior years of high school - and not an add-on charge.

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

It's a good example of how introducing bureaucracy drives up costs and reduces uptake.  I bet there is a downside in terms of medical issues due to fewer people being able to drive.

Not to mention the reduced load on parents who become free of having to drive their kids everywhere.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I reckon a driving simulator would be easy to implement and you could give everybody the same test. You could have unexpected things happen etc.

As long as you didn't overdo it...  I once read that flight simulator testers were in trouble for being too sadistic. They would make airline captains land at Singapore in a complete fog with lots of engines out and the first officer raping the air hostesses...Apparently, the simulation was so realistic that they caused real distress doing this stuff.

 

[old man emu]

9 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

should be at least an elective in senior years of high school

No. Not an elective in senior years. It is too late then. A Driver Ed course should be given when kids are 15 - in Year 9.  And there is no need to have the kids driving. Think of a Driver Ed course for Year 9 students in the same way as the ground course we did for our pilot's licence. A lot of information can be provided in a classroom situation, and some things can be shown by example with simple devices.

 

The problem is that no one has divorced learning to drive from passing the driving test. I lived near a major driver testing centre and I can tell you that I was more wary of people in driving school cars than I was of Harry the Who-me? P-Plater. It was worse if the driving school car had a learner driver in it. Driving Instructors do not teach people how to drive. They coach people in how to pass the driving test. 

 

If you'll indulge me, read the attached little contribution I sent to my local paper on this topic.

Teach our children well.docx