warmly,
lexi

However if they’re thinking of such a plan what about the number of soccer mums and weekend warriors who do less than the average 20;000kms a year because due to their lack of driving experience or knowledge of road rules they are just as likely to cause an accident

As are the city dwellers who have very little experience on country roads but like to have weekend getaways to the country.. as the majority of people killed on country roads are from the major cities so they should also have a similar restriction forcing them to stay in the burbs

Hell why not just put a 20Km radius restriction on everyone because when you are in an unfamiliar area and don’t know where you are going you too are more likely to be in or cause an accident

Everyone blames the young drivers on “bad driving habits”. I agree – a large number of young people DO have bad driving habits. But so do older people.

Many young people and instructors, even (been told this by one, myself), are under the opinion that “young people should drive so that they can pass their driving test. After that, drive how you want…”

I got my learners 3 months ago (have already done over 120 hours), and have already had four near misses, which everyone present agreed was not my fault. One was with a truck that merged into traffic on the motorway without looking. Normally, I would move into the right lane to let them in, but I was being overtaken at the time. A second was an elderly lady trying to do a u-turn at a major intersection (traffic lights), from the left hand side right-turn lane, without looking, at a light where there were no u-turns permitted anyway. I ended up barely avoiding it, and we ended up in a “T” formation, I couldn’t move until she did, and she just sat there mouthing off at me. Meanwhile, the lights changed and we ended up holding up most of the traffic.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that it’s not just young drivers causing the problem. Older people can be just as bad. Re-testing them would be a better idea than the “10km radius”.

I had a laugh today, i was behind an older bloke who had his hazard lights on while he was driving, maybe that’s not a bad idea!

The issue I see is that younger and elderly drivers suffer different issues. Younger drivers crash because of overconfidence, making them do stupid things. It doesnt have alot to do with not being able to do basic things in their car, the tests make sure you can, its the higher order skills required in say an emergency situation which they find themselves in due to recklessness that they lack. Older drivers on the other hand dont have the basic skills, Im sure they have many years of experience but the senses you require to driver such as hearing and site are diminished. So when it comes to checking blindspots they either dont bother or dont have the vision to completely check it. Or when it comes to hazard perception they dont pick up things early enough. And even when it comes to just controlling their vehicle in some cases, on one hand you have younger drivers who feel invinsible and do whatever they want without fear of death etc while on the other hand you have elderly drivers who are shyting themselves when driving and go 30km/h below the limit or take corners at ridiculous speeds etc. There is also the issue of their brains being able to process lots of information, driving involves alot of this especially in traffic… elderly drivers cant quite keep up, overload and consequently cause a crash or do something stupid.

First time posting! Woohoo !

A lot of good comments too.

One of the problems with older drivers and GP’s is that the GP is more than happy to let the older person continue to drive, even if they have medical conditions that mean they shouldn’t.

There was a fatal accident not far from me involving a police Rodeo on urgent duty (lights/siren). An elderly driver pulled out in front of the copper, collided and killed himself and his passenger. The copper was injured but survived.

The inquest revealed that the elderly driver had poor vision out of his right eye (the direction from which the cop car was travelling) and was practically deaf so he couldn’t hear the siren. Even the deceased drivers daughter said he shouldn’t have been driving but the doctor let him.

Okay, now I will put my flak jacket on. I used to be in the Highway Patrol (ducks for cover) and reported quite a few elderly drivers as unsafe on medical grounds however they just went to their local, friendly GP who they have been seeing for hundreds of years and the doctor proclaimed them fit to drive.

I do believe something needs to be done in regards to elderly drivers, but the RTA solution is not entirely practical unless the government steps up and provides better/dedicated public transportation.

Secondly, if you should fail then what? If a 32 year old business owner fails his test on a technicality like not waiting 3 seconds at a stop sign then what should happen? Should his driver’s license be revoked until he has 50 hours of supervised driving? Should he be able to redo the test a day later and pass because he now knows to wait 3 seconds? Should he sit a written exam?

It is pointless and impractical to retest everyone, especially when the testing methods are so flawed. Age is really the only consistent and logical factor to go by when considering retesting.

If retesting every 5 years was currently implemented you would complain about the cost and the fact that the testing method was so irrelevant.

All of them – get them all re-tested every 3 years, plus have a compulsory 1 day course.

In short – why not everyone? Training/testing is the biggest opportunity for consistent and safe driving.

Wasn’t it the Qld Government that decided that advanced driving courses led to more accidents in the young, because they become even more overconfident than they already are?

I tend to agree that re-testing should occur more frequently but every 5 years is probably a bit too often. Perhaps a retest after 3 years on Ps in order to get off Ps, and then every 10 years until age 70, then every 5 years till 80. After that, I think doctors already have the power to decide if illness should cause a license to be suspended, but I’m not sure ’cause I’m not yet 80.

I have been driving for 40 years, had 2 write-offs (single vehicle, country, tired, speeding) before I was 20. Haven’t had a bumper scrape since then, not even banging a door into the next car in the carpark.

Now that is my micro contribution to the statistics of the big picture, which shows that accidents decrease with age until a certain point when they increase again.

That suggests that re-testing is overkill for the middle ages. Older drivers like me would fail the theory test without some swatting, but the practical test of accident avoidance is easily passed.

I would tend to agree that older drivers tend to fail in one major area, awareness and inattention.

As where younger drivers tend to speed.

The goverments main focus has always been ’speeding kills’ it’s easy to focus on offences that make money, rather than issues like , safer better designed roads, more police presence on the roads etc…that consume the budgets of our politicians.
Even having coppers with radar guns will stop someone speeding instantly as opposed to a fixed speeding camera hidden behind bushes that will not prevent someone spending on for the remainder of their jorney.