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[Diamond Black Geezer]

Personally, welcome lessons on Motorways, as you're never taught it normally/formally, however what I find odd is...

-there are no compulsory lessons on motorways

but...

-motorways are statistically the safest roads - and, of course, with the greatest speeds.

Which begs an interesting conclusion - the roads which have the fastest speeds are driven on by people who have had no qualifications to do so - and yet are the safest.

I'm wondering if that's down to certain people basically keeping away from the 'big scary' motorways, leaving the generally more confident drivers to cruise - this would also explain the relatively high accident rate on country A/B-roads - the alternative if you want to avoid the motorways. No evidence, just a theory... though I did see only the other day a driver (of undisclosed gender) driving their supermini, leaned forward, wide-eyed, looking pretty terrified, at 49.9mph on the inside lane of the M180. Clearly not their natural territory. 

[AndyRoid]

How's that going to be policed?


Guess!!!  Another job for us 

And the smokers and those using their phones and no seatbelts and kids standing up on the back seat..................

that's still perfectly legal 

If the government took away the right to smoke while driving, there is no doubt in my mind that incidents of "road rage" would sky rocket.

[Diamond Black Geezer]

Hmmm, personally I see it as a law that they can introduce, that takes fairly little paperwork, can cost plenty 'on the books', allows the MPs to say ''we've passed XX amount of new laws this year, justifying another pay rise etc..'' looks good for the cameras, as it were.

It will/can never be realistically policed, not until it's actually made illegal to use a human-driven vehicle on public roads, and even then the X-Box 12 Generation will invent a hack using whatever replaces the replacement for the replacement of whatever replaces USB sticks. It's like publicly announcing ''we need to combat anti-semintism" (as was stated recently) you don't know what you're actually going to do - but it's a nice idea to say it. Some [thick] people will say ''ahh, they're trying to help" some won't even care/notice, as they have no political knowledge, they just vote in the opposite party they did last time, or whoever lies to them the most convincingly, and the final lot, say the remaining 10% will rant about it, as I am right now, but not be able to affect real change, as how can you? How can you publicly oppose a law created to increase safety, albeit no matter how limp-wristed and ineffectual? Even if you made 50% of the people in Britain Police Officers, it still wouldn't alter it - might as well try and police 'the wearing of red socks whilst driving on a wednesday'

Ooo! I've found another way to get the MPs to kill a bi of time...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2561716/GPs-league-drivers-likely-crash-car.html

GPs are apparently the most likely profession to claim on their insurance - so... reduce the number of GPs = reduce the number of crashes. Yes? Hurray!! We're saving lives!

[AndyRoid]

A bit like when they made possession of a handgun illegal after Thomas Hamilton blew his stack you mean?

All that law did was to piss off those that held them legally, yet at the same time made the crims richer as they could double the price of their product as it was now "illegal" to have one.
Did the morons who introduced the rule not think that those who bought them down the pub were already acting illegally to start with?

I'm not so sure it reduced the actual body count either. Simple fact is that if someone is going to shoot you then they are going to shoot you regardless.
Granted you can hide a handgun on your person a lot more readily than (say) a shotgun, but chop a few inches off the barrel and I'm sure a "sawn off" will quite easily fit inside an overcoat.

[Kevin Wood]

As always, it's the politician's fallacy.

"Something must be done!"
"There. I've done something. Don't forget to vote for..."

The thing I can't understand is that, when I learnt to drive, you just had to drive around with an examiner for 20 minutes, do a couple of exercises, answer a couple of questions and you were on the road.

Today's system is much more arduous than that already, yet it appears to be producing worse drivers. What does that tell us?

[Diamond Black Geezer]

AndyRoid - bang on (no pun intended) can't agree more

Kevin - again, cant agree enough. ~

Being only a youngish chap myself I cant claim to know what it was like growing up in the 60s/70s as basic for comparison for today, but the system of 'do a theory test. Fail? Ah well, just try again, and keep doing it until by random chance you might get a string of easy questions, and pass'

Now me, I revised like a demon, and wanted nothing off 100% pass - in the end I think I got 43 or 44 out of 45 - of which I was a bit disappointed at, but that's by the by. Lad at work - learning to drive, he did an online practice theory test and got 37/45 - and he's not a clue about the roads/driving, I had to explain to him 'that book (which was bought for himj, but he'd never opened) is the Highway Code - and you're supposed to know its contents. Not because you will pass your theory - but because they're the rules of the chuffin road!' Mind, he's the sterotypical young bloke can't be bothered/it'll never happen to me/if I don't work that hard someone will pick up the slack'-type, so shoudn't expect more, but nevertheless, being in a car, having random questions fired at me - and if I don't get them right 'out the car you get, come back next time' seems a damn sight better than the theory test system we have now, which, as proven, you could damn near pass on blind luck - and with just a couple of questions learned under his belt, could be a scraping pass. 

[Mr Skrunts]

Aren't these proposals for Northern Ireland only ?

Knowing Skruntie........

Hadnt noticed that bit.