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Do you support graduated driving licenses?
- Thread starter Matt N
- Start date
delta79
TS Member
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I do think a really low alcohol limit for 5 years after passing.
Insurance companies are made to give decent discount to newer drivers that pass certain advanced driving courses e.g. Rospa, IAM.
Convicted drink drivers should have a zero alcohol limit for 5 or 10 years after regaining their licence, with the police being given authority to stop and check they are sticking to it.
Insurance companies are made to give decent discount to newer drivers that pass certain advanced driving courses e.g. Rospa, IAM.
Convicted drink drivers should have a zero alcohol limit for 5 or 10 years after regaining their licence, with the police being given authority to stop and check they are sticking to it.
pluk
TS Member
He absolutely can.
Dave
TS Founding Member
You can’t unless you can prove you don’t think they can or will report it. Which obviously is almost impossible unless they saw them out driving.
The responsibility sits with the driver.
My point is it shouldn’t even be a matter of debate. All drivers should have to have regular sight tests and it should automatically feed to DVLA whether you have safe driving sight or not.
pluk
TS Member
Dave
TS Founding Member
pluk
TS Member
- you have assessed that a patient may not be safe to drive; and
- you consider that they will not or cannot inform the DVLA/DVA themselves; and
- you have a concern for road safety in relation to the patient and/or the wider public.
mo237
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I'm completely against this idea - if an examiner has deemed you safe to drive, why should you be penalised for being below a certain age? People who drive like idiots will still drive like idiots - sure you get a few 17yr olds who mess about, but that's the minority ruining things yet again.
For night driving - know your limits. If you feel really tired, simply don't get behind the wheel. I usually work nights so I wouldn't be able to get to my shift and back.
A big part of getting a license is to gain travel independence - this would be stripped if I had to find someone over 25 to go around with.
Just a stupid idea.
For night driving - know your limits. If you feel really tired, simply don't get behind the wheel. I usually work nights so I wouldn't be able to get to my shift and back.
A big part of getting a license is to gain travel independence - this would be stripped if I had to find someone over 25 to go around with.
Just a stupid idea.
Dave
TS Founding Member
Having a hunch without evidence would not cover you against a GDPR breach. If someone said they won’t or you happened to see one of your hundreds of patients in their car and be certain it was them then fine but how often do you think that happens?
Fact is like an MOT is centrally recorded it should be a requirement for all drivers to have regular sight tests and their legal vision status recorded. At the moment you are not even required to ever have a sight test to pass your test, just have the examiner ask you to read a number plate at a distance.
Again, no!
It is a rule for all inexperienced drivers, nothing to do with age.
The fact that the majority of inexperienced drivers are young is a secondary consideration.
This is for all new drivers.
A sensible idea to protect all generations, especially the young...who tend to die more than other age groups, late at night, in groups, where drink, drugs and speed are involved...in cars.
Really sad fact, but true.
Face it.
Something should be done, what would you suggest.
pluk
TS Member
There's big old gap between a hunch (not enough), and a certainty (not necessary), and in the lower area of that space is a consideration, somewhere around a suspicion. Optitions and Dr's do make referrals pretty regularly, I know because markers are left behind on PNC records.
I kind of understand referrals to DVLA not being mandatory, you wouldn't want people not to get medical assessment because of that fear and miss treatment and diagnosis as a result, but it is mental that there will undoubtedly be people killed as a result.
I've only had one substantial collision in a job car, thankfully at 30 and not on a response run, when at a cross roads a car came straight out across me. I bounced of them into a wall outside a corner shop which often has a row of kids sitting on it eating sweets, luckily noone was sitting on it that day. When the old guy (and he was ancient) was sat in the back of an ambulance, back doors open, and my colleague asked him to read the numberplate of the big luminous police car parked directly behind it his response was "what police car?" He was blind asa bat, and we all got lucky.
NuttySquirrel
TS Member
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As someone who has regular eye tests and relatively poor long-distance vision, I'd be extremely angry if I found my optician had reported me to the DVLA. It's your responsibility and no one else's to tell the DVLA about medical conditions that might affect your driving.
For the record, my optician has said I'm fine to drive!
For the record, my optician has said I'm fine to drive!
pluk
TS Member
How angry would you be if your child or partner was killed by someone who was clearly medically unfit to drive, and then found out a professional who was fully trained to make that assessment and had a very good idea they were not going to take their advice to stop driving took no action?
It has to be right that a referral system is in place for those medically trained to know the issues the patient/client may not be able to see in themselves.
And if he said you wasn't, and you didn't agree with their expert assessment...
Dave
TS Founding Member
If it’s mandatory you won’t miss it because if you don’t have a sight test your licence would be voided.
In fact in the current system people are more likely to avoid their sight test to bury their head in the sand.
Matt.GC
TS Member
It was the police that alerted me to get my eyes tested. I did my first speed awareness course in my 20's and they did a quick eye test on all of us. The officer asked me after the test if I knew I was slightly short sited and that my ability to not fully read number plates at a specific distance made me borderline illegal to drive without glasses. I did get a test afterwards and was slightly short sited but legal to drive.
Years passed until my next test, which was spurred by my partner mentioning that I couldn't read road signs that she could. I felt quite irresponsible really because when I took the new test I realised how much my eye site had deteriorated in the years that had passed and I really should have gone sooner.
I forgot to put my glasses on the other day and went to pick the kids up from school. Pulling onto the dual carriageway I felt myself not being aware of how close I was to other vehicles and feeling uncomfortable that I couldn't see little details in the road in front of me at 60mph. I keep a set in my car just in case and immediately put them on of course. But it served as a reminder to me of just how dangerous it can be. That probably used to be my normal and years ago I would have been driving around the entire country with work unaware how dangerous I was to other road users and pedestrians.
I don't do grassing and snitching and opticians probably should be informing and trusting their patients to do the right thing. But if I knew someone who rolled out of a pub slaughtered and got into a car every evening, or that someone was going out every day driving around without a driving license, I wouldn't just stand by and let it happen. If you know that someone can't see well enough, yet they purposely ignore it and continue to drive, then surely you have a duty to act?
Years passed until my next test, which was spurred by my partner mentioning that I couldn't read road signs that she could. I felt quite irresponsible really because when I took the new test I realised how much my eye site had deteriorated in the years that had passed and I really should have gone sooner.
I forgot to put my glasses on the other day and went to pick the kids up from school. Pulling onto the dual carriageway I felt myself not being aware of how close I was to other vehicles and feeling uncomfortable that I couldn't see little details in the road in front of me at 60mph. I keep a set in my car just in case and immediately put them on of course. But it served as a reminder to me of just how dangerous it can be. That probably used to be my normal and years ago I would have been driving around the entire country with work unaware how dangerous I was to other road users and pedestrians.
I don't do grassing and snitching and opticians probably should be informing and trusting their patients to do the right thing. But if I knew someone who rolled out of a pub slaughtered and got into a car every evening, or that someone was going out every day driving around without a driving license, I wouldn't just stand by and let it happen. If you know that someone can't see well enough, yet they purposely ignore it and continue to drive, then surely you have a duty to act?
Bowser
TS Member
The only aspect I agree with is the ban on drinking but I think it should be a blanket ban for all drivers.
There is no way to measure your blood limit and too many other variables. If you’re making a conscious decision to be intoxicated then you have to accept you cannot subsequently operate a piece of extremely powerful and dangerous machinery in public.
There is no way to measure your blood limit and too many other variables. If you’re making a conscious decision to be intoxicated then you have to accept you cannot subsequently operate a piece of extremely powerful and dangerous machinery in public.
BarryZola
TS Member
I think I disagree with the zero limit on alcohol, only due to the fact that you could have a 4 pack of 5% lager the night before work and probably not be able to drive to work the next morning as you'd not be back at zero. However, realistically, you'd be totally fine to drive. Maybe 4 is a bit much, but imagine you'd just had 3 or whatever. You'd still be paranoid about a police stop which would probably effect your driving more than the 0.1 mg of alcohol still in your system. I disagree with getting leathered the night before work and then getting in the car the next morning, but a few lagers is different.
Then there's the marijuana drug swipes which don't seem fair either (just for clarity, I've not had a smoke for over a decade, so it doesn't personally effect me). As far as I'm aware, the swipes will pick up if you had a spliff or two even the day before in some cases and that could mean that you are deemed to be driving illegally and will then lose your license. But having a spliff 24 hours before driving surely isn't going to negatively effect your driving by that point? So basically, if you ever had a smoke you'd have to give it a couple of days before driving, unless you want to drive around all paranoid all the time about getting stopped and tested. And yeah, I do understand that marijuana is illegal in the first place which for arguments sake you could just say people shouldn't be smoking it AT ALL in the first place. Just a bit harsh to lose your license and potentially livelihood because you had a smoke the previous day.
Then there's the marijuana drug swipes which don't seem fair either (just for clarity, I've not had a smoke for over a decade, so it doesn't personally effect me). As far as I'm aware, the swipes will pick up if you had a spliff or two even the day before in some cases and that could mean that you are deemed to be driving illegally and will then lose your license. But having a spliff 24 hours before driving surely isn't going to negatively effect your driving by that point? So basically, if you ever had a smoke you'd have to give it a couple of days before driving, unless you want to drive around all paranoid all the time about getting stopped and tested. And yeah, I do understand that marijuana is illegal in the first place which for arguments sake you could just say people shouldn't be smoking it AT ALL in the first place. Just a bit harsh to lose your license and potentially livelihood because you had a smoke the previous day.
Bowser
TS Member
That’s fair enough. Really the intention would be (and currently is tbh) to stop people driving the day of rather than catching people out on a technicality.