An idea for a safer, happier country.

[Nick]

Now I know how to make life safer for everyone…

Over the last few weeks my blog has been a bit quiet, due to me being stupidly busy.

I’ve been all over the place, racking up plenty of miles in the car and on the train, doing all sorts of stuff, some of which is secret squirrel… but you’ll all find out soon enough.

Anyway, it was on a journey to Milton Keynes of all places that it suddenly struck me how we can sort out the problem of ‘yoofs’ being generally dislikeable little gits, chavs and their modded up 1.2 Corsas AND improve public transport, reduce road accidents AND knock your car insurance premiums down, all in one hit!

Interested? Read on.

First, before I present my great idea, you need to know how it came about. I was trundling up the A5 in a line of cars, all following some berk who decided that 40mph was fine and dandy for a dry, clear and straight national speed limit A road during the daytime. Obviously, I thought to myself, he’s got himself a new Mercedes and he’s running it in. Or, seeing it was a 54 plate, he’s just had it washed and doesn’t want road dust dulling his car showroom shine. Or perhaps he’s benevolently driving slowly so us owners of lesser cars can admire his gleaming expensive German machinery… Or it could just be that the bugger decided he’d had a hard day golfing and wasn’t looking forward to going home to the blue rinse topped raisin that his wife had become… so we all had to troll along behind him.

But I digress… The point is that I was fifth car back in the queue when, to my surprise, a silver Corsa came screaming past, engine howling as the spotty baseball capped driver decided to flaunt the Highway Code and very possibly the laws of physics and overtake all of us. This would’ve been fine except that he chose a stretch of road approaching a dip, with a turn off area reserved in the middle for car wanting to turn across our lane.

Now, at this point I’m wondering where he’s going as I can see the now panicky face of the woman in her Volvo, who was patiently waiting to turn across the traffic I’m part of. She now has a Corsa bearing down on her at great speed with the Blazin’ Squad going full volume and the engine shedding valves and other non-essential parts.

What happened next was nothing short of stunningly stupid. Baseball cap boy slams on the brakes, leaves roughly 4mm of his tread on the road before indicating LEFT to merge back in with our queue. THEN he goes right, into the oncoming traffic, around Mrs Volvo (who has stalled in her terror) and then screams off up the A5 making a third lane until his poor Corsa has had every rev strangled from it and he’s passed the Merc.

That this is probably the most irresponsible bit of driving I’ve seen is questionable but that it came close to being a scene of carnage is highly likely. Because of his impatience, Corsa Chav nearly wiped out the Volvo and there’s no way that his collision wouldn’t have carried on across both carriageways… All because he’s young, impetuous and impatient…

Now, this leads me to my great idea with all the benefits I mentioned earlier.

Ready?

Raise the age at which you can hold a full license to 25.

Simple eh?

Now of course there’s loads of you scoffing at your monitors right now, thinking what a prat I am for even suggesting such a thing, but hang on a minute, let me explain.

There’s a bit of dichotomy in the age limits for stuff right now. You can’t buy fireworks until you’re 18 but you can legally drive 1.5 tons of metal and machinery at 70mph. See the problem?

Society has deemed that fireworks are for the responsible only… yet a car, with which you can do far more damage than burn your hand or set fire to your hair, is deemed as being less dangerous than a Catherine wheel.

Also, insurance companies up their premiums for drivers under 25. There must be a reason for this and that reason is that under 25s have more crashes. Of course, over 25s will, to some extent subsidise the premiums on the younger drivers… that’s why companies that offer insurance to over 50s are doing so well… they pay out less often.

Let’s be honest, when you’re young, you think you’re invincible and you’re going to live forever. At 18 you have your whole life ahead of you and are aware of this… so you do utterly stupid things as you don’t stop to think through the consequences of your actions. I recently drove a road near my home town with a bend on it we used to call Dead Man’s Curve. The challenge, on this sweeping, hugely off-camber bend, was to go as fast as you possibly could. When I drove it the other day I just could not believe what a tit I was to go haring around that bend trying to ease every last rev out of my Astra, Nova, Cavalier, Renault 5 and Viva… (a list of FIVE cars? Yep, and I only ever sold two on… that was how bad I was)

I’d go haring around that bend doing at least 70 and I was what the rally drivers call ‘fully committed’. This means that I had the car balanced on the knife edge between exhilarating speed and danger or horrifying crash into the trees… if anyone had pulled out of a side road my choices would be down to just two… hit them and die or brake, spin off hit the trees and then die. I’ll openly admit it, I was an idiot and I’m bloody lucky to be here today… so it’s with hindsight that I suggest what may at first appear a radical approach… but the benefits for all will be huge!

First off, with fewer hot-headed drivers on the road, accident rates will drop. This will ease the strain on the emergency services and will have a knock on effect of reducing your insurance premium.

Second, any driver under the age of 25 NOT having a provisional license and a 25 year old (or older) driver sitting next to them is automatically banned from driving for life. The whole process would be speeded up. There wouldn’t be any need to spend tax payers’ money trolling through files at the DVLA it’s a simple case of if you’re not 25 or over and you’re driving unsupervised, you’re banned forever. Job done.

The next benefit comes from more people wanting to use public transport. With more people having to take the bus and the train and less money being spent scraping a teenager off the road, there’ll be cash to invest in a better, more efficient bus service, running more routes more frequently. The knock on from this is that we’ll be doing our bit to ease global warming as buses, though they pump out diesel fumes, are more efficient per head they carry… get more people on them and they become even more efficient.

Next, there’ll be fewer cars on the road. This means those road widening schemes, bypasses that kill small town centre businesses and revamps of motorways that see us driving at 5mph past 8 miles of cones will be needed far less. Also, there’ll be more people in each car per trip, a minimum of two for a supervised driver… so again it’s more efficient fuel wise.

Kids will have to rely on their parents far more for transport, which means that the parents will have a much better idea of where their kids are at night… the kids can’t just get in the car and disappear into the night which means they’re less likely to cause trouble if they know mum or dad will be picking them up later.

Driving standards will improve, because, since they were 17, they’ve been driving under supervision and now have 8 years of experience under their belt. They’ll have driven all over the place and gotten that essential road experience that clues drivers in to what other drivers are doing.

It might even have a knock on effect on the problem of high house prices. Kids will stay at home longer as they need an over 25 to supervise them… by the time they’re 25 they’ll have a decent job and be earning respectable money, enough to save up for a deposit and buy themselves a place. House prices will come down as there’ll be fewer first time buyers. New car prices will fall as again, there’ll be fewer car buyers.

But, and this is the most important point, I won’t have to worry about driving through the smoking aftermath of some spotty little Chav and his Corsa up the A5.

[directhex]

i see your logic - but chavs don't suddenly become respectable businessmen at 25

[Nick]

Nope... but by then you DO have a sense of your own mortality.

[kempez]

Agreed...chavs stay chavs for longer than 15-25

[UKMuFFiN]

Nope... but by then you DO have a sense of your own mortality.

You did perhaps doesn't mean it will be the same for everyone.

I disagree though, because again (it happens so much), its solving a problem by punishing the wrong people. Think of all those responsible young drivers (like me ) who needs a car to get to work. I'm 19.

[Nick]

Ah yes, but would you need a car if there was a better bus service?

If you did have access to a car, you wouldn't NEED to have one as you would have taken a job that works around the fact you don't have a car.

Certainly, if you look at it from say, kicking the law off tomorrow, it would make loads of peoples' lives misery.

But, if the law had always been in place, you wouldn't think anything of it.

And the real beauty is that this CAN be brought in overnight with minimal effect. All you do is give an exemption to anyone under 25 who already has a full license and anyone who has had a provisional license for the last six months.

Everyone else, well, you gotta wait until your 25.

Sure, it won't immediately solve the problems it sets out to fix but it gives everyone time to adjust with public transport upscaling to cope with the forseen increase in demand.

And those who already rely on the car for work etc, well you're unaffected.

Sorted.

You know, I should run for PM...

[directhex]

You know, I should run for PM...

you'd be fortunate that the 18-25 age bracket don't vote, else you'd be ground into dirt

[mark19632]

One of my first jobs envolved driving between different sites, I was only 20 and would have been impossible if I didn't drive as you can't get on the bus with loads of boxes of equipment.

The idea of rasing the age limit is a good one. Maybe just a raise to 18 would help?

Personlly I'd like to see age you can ride a moped\scooters uped to stop the 15 year old chavs driving around all night on the stupid things.

[Nick]

you'd be fortunate that the 18-25 age bracket don't vote, else you'd be ground into dirt

Nope, I'm the David Cameron of the internet... I'm down with the yoofs...er, man?

One of my first jobs envolved driving between different sites, I was only 20 and would have been impossible if I didn't drive as you can't get on the bus with loads of boxes of equipment.

Yep, but if the law was already in place, you wouldn't know any different...

You're all thinking about how this, admittedly brilliant, idea would affect your current situation... which misses the point somewhat.

Let's take an example of someone who drives 5 miles to work and is 22 years old.

If my wonderful new law came into effect tomorrow, he would be unaffected as I've added in an exemption for current license holders. So no problem.

If the law had been in effect for the past 6 years, he wouldn't be working somewhere that he has to drive 5 miles to, as he wouldn't be able to drive. In fact, he might actually be working in the same place, he just gets the bus there... or maybe shares a lift.

Let's put it another way... those of you up in arms about it, think about this:
What if this law was all you knew and you'd grown up with it? In fact, it doesn't even have to be before you were born, just before you started driving. It would make little difference to you as it's the law and that's it.

The idea of rasing the age limit is a good one. Maybe just a raise to 18 would help?

Personlly I'd like to see age you can ride a moped\scooters uped to stop the 15 year old chavs driving around all night on the stupid things.

I don't think 18 is high enough... I chose 25 because the companies who make a living betting on whether you crash or not (c'mon, that's all insurance is, a bet...) reckon that you're a safer bet once you hit 25.

Of course, there's the old argument about "How come I'm less safe on the eve of my 25th birthday but safer 2 minutes later?" but you have to draw the line somewhere. And if it's good enough for companies that make multiple millions from it, if that's where they draw the line, then that's where we should too.

The higher insurance premiums for under 25s backs up my argument. These guys have all the stats so they know what they're talking about.

But with our current laws, we're saying "Sure, go ahead and drive a machine with which you can easily kill yourself and others... even if some of the best informed companies believe this is a bad idea..."

[dave87]

The great thing about Nicks plan is that by the time it ever gets established, I'll be 25 anyhow. Thats not to say I'm for the idea- but I would say 50% of my 6th Form wrote off their first car (and some their second, and third, well you get the idea)

The other thing Mark raised was chavs on scooters - either make the rules more realistic (50cc 4stroke should be more than enough, less powerful than my petrol lawnmower ) or make them less bloody annoying - half of the ones near me you can hear 3 streets away.

Of course, we all think we are the greatest drivers on the planet, but I would argue the fact I have managed to survive 5000 miles on a motorbike amongst said hooligans does bear some thinking about. Therefore were not all bad, and yes it probably is a good idea, but whos to say the 25 year olds of tomorrow wont be exactly the same as the 17 year olds of today?

[Nick]

I trashed 3 cars before I was 21... hence me saying I'm really very lucky to be around.

And no, I'm not being a hypocrite, I'm saying that yes, I was a total plonker when I was young and it's just pure bloody luck that I never seriously hurt myself and all my write offs were after taking unexpected high speed trips into the countryside (except one, which was also down to carelessness on my part).