I love my cars and bikes, but am losing interest in driving/ riding in the UK rapidly. After spending a week in France, where the roads are smooth, there's little traffic, and everyone just seems to get on with it, being back in the UK and driving on our roads today was thoroughly depressing.
No one is ever going to convince me that £8000 is a reasonable price for an exhaust pipe. Especially if I've just paid £28000 for the entire bike -surely it should be included at that price... I guess I'm old fashioned!
Driving standards in the UK are much worse than many European countries now. The UK has just way to many vehicles, general poor and often dangerous driving and the roads are falling apart.
agree with this, we were out in the car the other week and I was trying to explain to my missus that I’ve lost my mojo for riding but don’t know why, and said “let’s count in the next 5 mins the amount of dangerous sketchy moves/near crashes….” And we counted 3…. 3 in five mins, cars cutting each other up, turning across traffic, nearly running into the back of cars etc… mad, totally mad
I’ve taken full advantage of this offer. Had an order in for March next year, saw this offer and thought ‘f€¥k it and pulled the pin!
This may not be a popular view but.......I'd be supportive of re-tests every 5 years to ensure you still meet the minimum standards. If you can't demonstrate a set level of competence and perform a skills test, then you shouldn't be on the road. That ought to weed out those that perhaps scraped through their test on the fifth attempt, developed bad or dangerous habits, have poor uncorrected vision or who have a complete lack of situational awareness, to name but a few. Sadly there is no mechanism, years down the line after someone has passed their test, to properly monitor people's abilities. This could easily be a way to achieve that.
Agreed. What other activity/industry where the protagonists are tested for competence and then issued with a licence, operating on regulated infrastructure would be allowed to continue uninvestigated if around 2000 deaths a year occurred, with many, many more injured?
Not going to happen in a country run by right wing zealots whose idea of Britain is ‘I’m alright, Jack and fuck everybody else’. They will carry on driving their armour plated Range Rovers running roughshod over those who actually keep the country functioning.
Sadly the government (party politics aside) are probably numb to the fact that it would generate a huge income, were it to be adopted, maybe even use it to offset road tax as a sweetener. My job requires me to be comprehensively tested every 6 months for competency (a process that last 12 hours) I regard it as a great leveller and a useful tool from which to learn from any deficiences you may have and build on those to improve your performance. It is a shame that driving skills and aptitude are not considered in the same vein, as statisitically it exposes an individual to a much higher risk of injury to themselves or others, if their skill set is lacking or they are just plain crap behind the wheel or handlebars. Periodic testing would, I imagine, be a way to mop up any individual who falls short of what would reasonably be considered to be "the minimum standard". If they do, retraining could be an option. If they subsequently fail to meet the requirements and/or a re-test, they are taken out of the equation. One less numpty on the road. Not sure that is such a bad thing.
Be careful what you wish for…we are so overregulated already, in so many areas of life in this wee part of the world, that adding even more would totally open the floodgates. What’s next? 10mph speed limits, starting in Wales and spreading across the rest of us soon after? It’s time to wake up, smell the coffee and recognise what the powers that be have in store for us, then resist, not capitulate and give them further ideas of how to control us and rob us of our cash as well! Now, if you had added “over the age of 70” to your original post, that would have got me on board
It's a given that if you reach that ripe old age, then clearly you need (or at least should be subject to) some assessment. The problem is that poor driving standards go unchecked and the litany of failure by successive governements to address it, just manifests itself as imposing more and more draconian measures to kerb any rise in accident statitistics, whilst the real cause goes untreated. It would take a brave political movement to enact it and doubtless it would be met with stiff opposition, mostly due to some mis-guided sense of infringement of human rights, but if you are competent behind the wheel, you've nothing to worry about. People confuse their driving licence with a sense of entitlement. If you want keep it, it is not so absurd an idea that instead, you need to periodically prove you deserve to.
As I have said above, we live in one of the most regulated parts of the world. Where has that got us? What’s wrong with fully and properly enforcing the current regulations, that would see the real life numpties taken off the roads quickly? I believe your argument falls down on the basis of ability or non-ability to drive. You seem to assume that the numpties on the road behave in that way, because they are unable to drive properly, for one reason or another. I believe they behave that way because they think they can get away with it (unless age has got to them). Think of the driving test candidate who drives and behaves impeccably for their 1/2 hour test, then when qualified does pretty much what they want, until they are caught. The biggest problem isn’t the standard of driving ability, but the standard of behaviour of the driver on the road imho.
We are all guilty of riding in a way assuming we won’t get caught. It’s what makes it fun but the silly things people do in normal riding is unreal but there isn’t enough police to rectify it
On motorways, I consistently see drivers pull into the next lane trying to squeeze their vehicle between two others and the space is perhaps just 1.5 cars long. That is just bad driving and a complete lack of understanding of road safety. The problems are exacerbated by very little road policing ( as its all left to cameras) and so many people being in a massive hurry all the time as they try and cram 30 hours into a 24 hour day. Its a given that most urban roads will become 20 mph but that's as much to do with the fact many drivers fail to observe the 30mph limits we have now.
Thats that's the one that boils my piss, cars that overtake on motorway or dual carriage ways, pull into your braking space, then put the brakes on because they want to take an exit
As I was once told by a friend that rode bikes in the police for several decades, if you have to apply your brakes immediately after an overtake, you shouldn’t have overtaken. And you should never use your brakes on a motorway unless coming to a standstill, yet you always see dick heads just braking for the hell of it.
How many times have you followed a bint along a winding A road? Brake brake brake brake etc. I’d never buy a car off an old bint. Might only have 6,000 miles on it but it’ll be fucked.
In part I agree with your points. In all honesty, the policing of the roads and a re-test would need to go hand in hand to have maximum effect. I appreciate that not all poor driving standards are down to an individual's lack of ability. For that sector, only enforcement through policing will change that. However a mandatory periodic re-test would specifically be able to pinpoint that sector of the driving population who would otherwise slip through the net and that simply aren't competent, whether that is through a lack of or deterioration of confidence, age related, poor vision, poor general awareness, ignorance etc. Admittedly a capable yet poorly behaved driver could easily amend his/her habits to pass any subsequent test but in combination with general policing, it would in time catch up with them on the road. There are plenty of drivers on the road who don't necessarily exhibit bad behaviour, but who simply aren't of a capable standard. They are as much of a threat, than a capable one driving like a dick.
