Driving Age to be raised to 18 in the UK, then restricted

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As a newly qualified driver I am sick of seeing the government(s) progressively put more and more obstacles in the way of people who want to get a driving license.

The latest proposals are for the age of driving test to be raised to 18, but not only that, according to the Independent:

"For a further 12 months the young person would be subject to a number of new restrictions, including a curfew from 10pm to 5am unless they were accompanied by an adult over 30, a ban on carrying any passengers at all under the age of 30, and stricter rules on mobile phone use (even hands-free) and alcohol consumption." (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...s-8873739.html)

So you're seriously telling me that a new driver who had two mates, John aged 30 and Jack age 29, it's time to go home at 10:30pm, John asks you "can we have a lift please?" You'd have to say "I can take you but can't take Jack in my car because he's 29 and I can only drive people over 30!" How ridiculous. And you only have to be 21 to be a driving instructor so Jack could actually be an instructor with an Advanced Driver's certificate, but no, he's hasn't reached the good old age of 30 so you he's not allowed in the backseat!

Ridiculous or what?

Yeah, this proposal really does not make much sense. In fact, I think it presents more problems. 16 to 18 year olds need to attend school, and may be entering university as well. They may have part-times jobs and family responsibilities, like shopping/errands for younger sibling and parents. Those who live in more rural communities need to drive to support their lifestyle.

I do understand that reckless or driving drunk is a problem, but why punish this group? Yes, it's ridiculous

the laws are made by politicians who know nothing of the real world and do nothing but stick their hand in the till - all the while diverting most of the voters' attention with right-wing rhetoric and fabricated sound-bites in the daily fail....

They tryed to do almost that same proposal here, good news it failed so theres reason for hope. Heres the thing, here you get out of high school at 17-18 depending on your birthday and say you become an apprentece as a mechanic, how are you suppost to do your job if you can't have a full driving permit?

It's political control of people's lives. It's a ludicrous proposal and is harmful to liberty and freedom.

If you're considered fully able to drive, that's the end of it. This creates a discriminatory tier of people who are assumed not to be able to drive as well as others purely because of their age.

Personally, I'm more worried about people aged 70+ still being on the roads, even when they have dementia or other illnesses that make them a danger to other drivers and pedestrians but none of the parties want to talk about people like that, because those are the people that vote.

You cannot argue with statistics.

New drivers--especially those in the 16-24 year old cohort--are responsible for a disproportionately high number of accidents and reckless operation offences. Jurisdictions that have introduced graduated licensing, have generally demonstrated significant reduction in new driver accidents, but primarily for the 16 to 18 year old cohort. At least one study (in Nova Scotia) demonstrated that graduated licensing for older learners did not present a statistically significant reduction in accidents.

What this suggests to me is that the 16-18 year old cohort presents specific risks that are not presented at the same rate in other age cohorts, and regulatory steps to restrict driving privileges in this cohort can have a beneficial impact on road safety, generally.

As for liberty and freedom, Tequila, I don't buy it. Driving is not a human right, it is a licensed activity for which proficiency must be demonstrated. I do, however, agree with you about the elderly on roads. My profession is often called upon to report on patients with specific conditions (of which dementia is expressly one) for the purpose of permitting the licensing authority to withdraw their license or impose new proficiency examinations.

As coming from an country with an age limit of 18 for the driving license. Public transport and tons of mopeds. ^^ Additional, mopeds are generally only allowed to use until an age of 16, but depending on when you started school, you can do different apprenticeship already starting with 15, so then you are allowed to own a special permittance for driving moped to your work.

In general, I dont know of your public transport system, so I wont have an oppinion about whats possible or whats not. But the typical alcohol forbidance for a certain time, for new drivers, is reasonable in my eyes. As well as I can relate with the cell phone thing: Every second time, I am confronted with a driver, driving totally weirdly and out of logic, they are busy with handling an cellphone on their lap or talking with the air. -.- The other stuff, like time permits, age of other drivers and knows hell what, seems idiotic to me. As long as you are not drunk or focused on your cell phone, I dont see where there is the difference between an passenger of 29 or 30, or between driving in winter 5 pm, when its f*****g dark + snow + ice + fog or summer 11pm, when its f*****g dark and maybe wet.

Our public transportation systems are awful at best, I got my learners permit at 17, full permit at 18 and never have I had an accident, perhaps if more children had to pay for the cars they drive and the insurance for them the statistics would change, my parents were lucky I am respectful of their property, laws and trust they have in me. I have also heard that if you remove poor weather, night and perhaps freeway driving from the youth driving statistics you won't be able to see a difference between them and seniors, why? becouse most seniors simply don't drive in those times. Also I wonder how meny accidents in each age group go unreported since seinors can most often pay off their victims with cash to avoid Police and insurance involvement where as youth don't have the cash money most of the time deal this way.

Either way I don't think its right to judge a person who has not been givin the chance to prove themselves.