Crash, bang, codswallop
I saw on the news last night that apparantly young drivers are more likely to crash their cars!
My God! I never once thought that the younger drivers' lack of experience would actually make them more likely to crash their cars! Incredible! Something must be done! Thank goodness somebody did that research - I'd have never realised that on my own.
And something has been put forward to solve the situation. A suggestion so cunning that it must've taken a team of highly paid consultants weeks to come up with: Make the driving test harder. Bravo.
Sounds good, right? But it's wrong. Completely and utterly.
The driving test already IS hard. I took it over ten years ago, and back then if you so much as clipped the kerb whilst parking, you failed. Since then it's become tougher with the theory test getting harder, hazard perception tests and all sorts. More and more people need more than one attempt to pass it. Not me, of course, but then I'm a naturally gifted driver. Ahem. Let's just not mention the car I wrote off aged 19...
So, if the test is hard enough already, what do we do? Well, my thought is a "pilot"-style system. When you learn to fly a plane, you have to complete so many hours in the air before you are awarded a licence. And in a plane there isn't even anything to hit. So why not do the same in a car as well? The test must still be passed, but until you have clocked up 100 hours or something in the learner car you can't have a licence.
In the US, they can often start to drive younger. 15 or 16 is quite common, I believe (if movies haven't lied to me, at any rate). This does actually make sense. At 15, most young men aren't the raging balls of testosterone that they become at 18. Therefore they can learn to drive and actually get some experience behind the wheel before they feel the urge to fit bored out coffee tins as exhaust pipes to impress the laydeez.
Limiting the type of car they can drive is pointless, as a 1 litre car will still do 80mph if you want it to. Limiting the times they can drive is also not workable, as some will need to drive at night. Fitting speed limiters is useless because they will bypass them.
I have two further suggestions. Make all new drivers sit in a car that crashes. They can have a seatbelt on, but no helmet or airbags. Crash that car at 20mph into a wall. They'll not have any major injuries but it'd scare the crap out of them. Of course that wouldn't get past health and safety.
So the only other option is - given that it only seems to affect boys - is to give all newly qualified men a dose of estrogen.
PS - There is a lot of furore about Microsoft giving away free laptops with Windows Vista to bloggers, on the hope that they'll write favourably about Vista. Obviously I'm outraged. I've got a blog and didn't get one. So let the record show that should Microsoft want to send me a free laptop, then I am willing to accept.
My God! I never once thought that the younger drivers' lack of experience would actually make them more likely to crash their cars! Incredible! Something must be done! Thank goodness somebody did that research - I'd have never realised that on my own.
And something has been put forward to solve the situation. A suggestion so cunning that it must've taken a team of highly paid consultants weeks to come up with: Make the driving test harder. Bravo.
Sounds good, right? But it's wrong. Completely and utterly.
The driving test already IS hard. I took it over ten years ago, and back then if you so much as clipped the kerb whilst parking, you failed. Since then it's become tougher with the theory test getting harder, hazard perception tests and all sorts. More and more people need more than one attempt to pass it. Not me, of course, but then I'm a naturally gifted driver. Ahem. Let's just not mention the car I wrote off aged 19...
So, if the test is hard enough already, what do we do? Well, my thought is a "pilot"-style system. When you learn to fly a plane, you have to complete so many hours in the air before you are awarded a licence. And in a plane there isn't even anything to hit. So why not do the same in a car as well? The test must still be passed, but until you have clocked up 100 hours or something in the learner car you can't have a licence.
In the US, they can often start to drive younger. 15 or 16 is quite common, I believe (if movies haven't lied to me, at any rate). This does actually make sense. At 15, most young men aren't the raging balls of testosterone that they become at 18. Therefore they can learn to drive and actually get some experience behind the wheel before they feel the urge to fit bored out coffee tins as exhaust pipes to impress the laydeez.
Limiting the type of car they can drive is pointless, as a 1 litre car will still do 80mph if you want it to. Limiting the times they can drive is also not workable, as some will need to drive at night. Fitting speed limiters is useless because they will bypass them.
I have two further suggestions. Make all new drivers sit in a car that crashes. They can have a seatbelt on, but no helmet or airbags. Crash that car at 20mph into a wall. They'll not have any major injuries but it'd scare the crap out of them. Of course that wouldn't get past health and safety.
So the only other option is - given that it only seems to affect boys - is to give all newly qualified men a dose of estrogen.
PS - There is a lot of furore about Microsoft giving away free laptops with Windows Vista to bloggers, on the hope that they'll write favourably about Vista. Obviously I'm outraged. I've got a blog and didn't get one. So let the record show that should Microsoft want to send me a free laptop, then I am willing to accept.
posted by Nej at
1:03 pm
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