There has been a lot of discussion recently over how drivers, in particular young drivers should be managed such that the number of accidents can be reduced. Suggestions have included banning new drivers from driving at night and preventing young drivers carrying people of their same age for the first couple of years. The problems with these and other similar, but well meaning suggestions are, in my mind, unenforceable and impractical.
Now, I have my own thoughts on how perhaps the drivers of this country can be ‘managed’ such that they do not drive beyond their own abilities and the beauty of my suggestion is that the basic building blocks to implement such a scheme already exist.
I won’t put it into lots of flowery words or try to justify my thoughts, I will simply put them down and let the reader make his or her mind up on it’s merits.
The scheme would work like this:
When a driver passes the driving test, then the driver will be entitled to drive any vehicle in accordance with insurance limitations up to a maxim of group 2 (assuming groups, for this argument run from 1 to 20). This entitlement shall run for two years.
Assuming there have been no traffic violations for that duration, then the driving entitlement shall move up 2 groups. This will then continue every year until the maximum is reached.
There should be a mechanism to allow the courts lower the entitlement already gained where traffic violations are deemed to be too serious to ignore.
This scheme would stop all young drivers irrespective of wealth driving any vehicle too powerful for their prevailing levels of experience and manage repeat offenders by dropping their entitlement.
I don’t doubt that there would need to be a lot more substance behind the scheme but I do believe that it could work. I do also believe that the motor industry would be against the scheme, and possibly the insurers but if saves lives, young and old, it has to be worthy of consideration.
There, I’ve said my piece, so now I’ll go back to my diet and training.
The Adventures of Podge & Tubbs 