Entirely unashamed anti car propaganda, and the more the better.

[edcraw]

Even if I drove a hundred times further than you per year I'd probably be less of a risk

Anything to back this weird claim up? Fact is you almost certainly drive several hundred times more than me so are far far far more risky.

Your saying driving is inherently risky and the first step of reducing risk is always to stop or reduce the activity. You’re choosing to miss this step because you can’t be arsed.

 

[platinumsage]

I only drive when necessary.

 

[edcraw]

I only drive when necessary.

Not the question - how have you reduced the necessity? Weird you’re refusing to answer.

 

[platinumsage]

Not the question - how have you reduced the necessity? Weird you’re refusing to answer.

Because it's whataboutery from you - avoiding my original question - why have you not bothered with any training or even assessment of your driving in 25 years?

 

[edcraw]

Because it's whataboutery from you - avoiding my original question - why have you not bothered with any training or even assessment of your driving in 25 years?

Because the risk is reduced by only driving a few times a year. As mentioned that’s the first and most important step on reducing risk and one you’re selfishly ignoring cos you don’t actually give a shit.

 

[maomao]

I bet he has driving gloves.

 

[kabbes]

As someone who used to price car insurance, I can say that the overwhelmingly most important risk factor (at least for those over about 21 years of age) is how much somebody drives. A lot of rating factors are in essence just trying to find correlates for this. Next most important is where/when people drive (ie driving conditions). Things like extra driving qualifications barely register as risk factors, just as rating factors via proxies for things like attitude to risk — for example, those who care enough to get extra qualifications are broadly also likely to have a more cautious attitude.

 

[edcraw]

Because it's whataboutery from you - avoiding my original question - why have you not bothered with any training or even assessment of your driving in 25 years?

You’re focusing on step four and ignore the first one. Typical selfish driver!

 

[maomao]

Because it's whataboutery from you - avoiding my original question - why have you not bothered with any training or even assessment of your driving in 25 years?

Assuming you're waving some IAM qualification around here, why is it appropriate to teach a system designed for police pursuit driving to civilian motorists?

 

[edcraw]

Assuming you're waving some IAM qualification around here, why is it appropriate to teach a system designed for police pursuit driving to civilian motorists?

Probably a special constable

 

[maomao]

Probably a special constable

It has some of the same letters as constable.

 

[platinumsage]

Hmmm, I seem to remember edcraw advocating regular retesting, surely this is particularly important for those who only drive rarely.

Yes here it is:

Oh dear - a driver (I presume) who doesn’t understand the Highway Code. This is my we need regular retesting.

This is when tractors and caravans SHOULD let traffic past

These are the rules regarding the road rage-provoking issue

www.walesonline.co.uk

When did you last take a retest?

 

[platinumsage]

Assuming you're waving some IAM qualification around here, why is it appropriate to teach a system designed for police pursuit driving to civilian motorists?

It’s not designed for pursuit driving. Anyway a voluntary mock L test or check test from an ADI should suffice. Anything to check that you have kept abreast of changes to road law and practise, and your driving hasn’t deteriorated since you first learnt decades ago.

 

[edcraw]

Hmmm, I seem to remember edcraw advocating regular retesting, surely this is particularly important for those who only drive rarely.

Yes here it is:



When did you last take a retest?

Yeah - I think that should happen.

Again, how are you reducing your driving?

 

[edcraw]

It’s not designed for pursuit driving. Anyway a voluntary mock L test or check test from an ADI should suffice. Anything to check that you have kept abreast of changes to road law and practise, and your driving hasn’t deteriorated since you first learnt decades ago.

For sure - obviously needs to be compulsory and license confiscated if the test is failed.

 

[platinumsage]

Yeah - I think that should happen.

Except to you apparently.

Again, how are you reducing your driving?

By only driving when necessary, as I said.

I cycle more than I drive, as I’ve said previously on this thread, which you appear not have read much of.

 

[edcraw]

Except to you apparently.



By only driving when necessary, as I said.

I cycle more than I drive, as I’ve said previously on this thread, which you appear not have read much of.

It’s mountain biking isn’t it?

 

[maomao]

It’s not designed for pursuit driving. Anyway a voluntary mock L test or check test from an ADI should suffice. Anything to check that you have kept abreast of changes to road law and practise, and your driving hasn’t deteriorated since you first learnt decades ago.

ADI's teach weird shit and shouldn't be allowed to test people.

 

[platinumsage]

ADI's teach weird shit and shouldn't be allowed to test people.

Agree with you there but it’s better than nothing if you can’t be arsed to seek anything else. At least ADIs know stuff like how a zebra crossing works these days, which teuchter admitted he didn’t know despite driving through them.

 

[platinumsage]

It’s mountain biking isn’t it?

Nope, I only cycle to get to places, which means sticking to roads and paths around here. And I’m not one of those weirdos who insists on using public roads as a personal gym.

 

[edcraw]

Nope, I only cycle to get to places, which means sticking to roads and paths around here. I’m not one of those weirdos who insists on using public roads as a personal gym.

 

[xenon]

I just heard Mike Rutherford on the radio. He’s been boring people about cars for 20 years. This two has to be one of the most boring threads ever on urban.

 

[maomao]

Agree with you there but it’s better than nothing if you can’t be arsed to seek anything else. At least ADIs know stuff like how a zebra crossing works these days, which teuchter admitted he didn’t know despite driving through them.

Only a very small number of motorists will ever do voluntary testing; it should be at least 5 yearly (and preferably annually by the age of 65-70) for everyone.

 

[platinumsage]

Only a very small number of motorists will ever do voluntary testing;

Indeed, although I would have hoped a vocal proponent of retesting who spends lots of time posting online about bad driving would make the effort.

it should be at least 5 yearly (and preferably annually by the age of 65-70) for everyone.

Sounds good to me.

 

[kabbes]

I’ve got nothing in principle against retesting every 5 years but I’m 95% convinced it won’t do anything to help. There’s a reason that driving experience effectively ceases to be a rating factor after about 5-7 years. On average, people do over 1000 hours of driving in five years. That is more than sufficient to obtain and maintain competence. More experience doesn’t really help after that unless you’re doing thousands of hours of what psychologists call “deliberate practice”, which no driver does (except maybe racing drivers or something).

What all that means is that anybody that does even a moderate amount of driving (probably a fraction even of that average) will stay at a level of experience that should make it incredibly easy for them to pass a driving test if they just concentrate a bit for 30 minutes. The exceptions will be those people who basically never drive. Maybe it’s satisfying to remove a licence from such people but it won’t really make any difference to road safety because, well, they don’t drive. The ones that fail are the very ones we don’t care about anyway, basically.

There’s a decent argument for a retest five years after qualification, because if you have not done enough driving in that time, you’re basically back to being a learner. And there is an argument for testing people beyond an age threshold at which awareness starts to suffer. Testing those in between, though, is going to cost an awful lot, create stress and time problems for people and deliver very little for that overhead.

All this focus on driver ability is an example of the Fundamental Attribution Error — a focus on individual factors rather than the baseline. Honestly, if you want to improve road safety, the two most effective methods by far will be (1) to reduce the number of miles driven; and (2) to address the conditions under which people drive.

 

[teuchter]

Might be worth distinguishing between a "driving test" where you concentrate for half an hour on not exposing your bad habits, and some kind of knowledge test which is basically about ensuring everyone is up to date on changes to the highway code every few years. And yes there's an argument for cyclists and scooterists doing the latter, but probably no practicable way of enforcing it. Perhaps there could be a motorist funded incentive scheme.

 

[platinumsage]

It’s not as simple as reducing miles driven. In 2020 during the pandemic we did a big experiment where people drove less but cycled more. In 2020 cyclist deaths increased 43% on the previous year as the total motor vehicle mileage dropped by 22%.

The reasons for this may be complex, but it seems clear that encouraging drivers to switch to cycling should be done very cautiously, perhaps with due regard to cyclist training.

 

[stethoscope]

Who's 'we' and where are the stats from out of curiosity? I'm not a driver or a cyclist and use public transport in the North to be transparent.

 

[Orang Utan]

Oh, so you are a keen motorist despite your earlier protestation that you only blat down the M5 on holiday occasionally in your highly damaged death trap.



Another keen motorist, if you're to be believed.

I assume you've both undertaken further driver training and/or assessment since your L test? Surely anyone who thinks drivers are a dangerous liability would ensure that they receive more than the most basic level of one-off training several decades ago.

What did you both learn from this additional training and/or assessment with respect to road safety?

Nah, only dickheads do advanced driving courses, so they can boast about it in order to impress absolutely no one apart from maybe Alan Partridge

 

[platinumsage]

Who's 'we' and where are the stats from out of curiosity? I'm not a driver or a cyclist and use public transport in the North to be transparent.

We is society at large, specifically in Great Britain to which the statistics pertain. I got the data for the graph from the DfT website e.g. (1, 2, 3 etc).