I was recently proposing regular drivers re-tests as a solution.
My teen has already developed some bad driving habits, like we all do, and is focused on not doing them during his upcoming driving test. For example, what if he fails for driving a little too fast?
Similarly, maybe if people had to think about their bad driving habits and risked losing their license if they slipped back into them, maybe it would help reinforce safer havits
What stopped me from driving too fast, when I developed that habit, was the realization that my eyes and brain can’t process fast enough to prevent the worst possible scenario. A child runs out from between two parked cars? The 10 miles an hour between 25 and 35 makes all the difference.
The highest group for liability are actually teenage boys
The risk of motor vehicle crashes is higher among teens ages 16–19 than among any other age group.
It’s so much so that insurance companies know to charge the highest risk group statistically
Women tend to pay less for car insurance than men. And it should come as no surprise that young drivers pay the most. Age correlates with driving experience and the risk of getting into a car accident.
If anything, speaking statistically, people are probably the least accident prone in their 50s-60s if they were good drivers all their life.
The high car insurance rates that young drivers pay start to go down at age 25. You’ll get the best rates in your 50s and early 60s
Funny, while I was in high school guys probably did have more fender benders but girls were the ones destroying cars and getting themselves killed. Of the four vehicle-related fatalities while I was in high school, three were girls at the wheel, one was one of their passengers.
Everyone is blaming older people, yet as I’ve seen older people approach the point where they should no longer drive, they limit themselves before anyone else does. That older neighbor driving to church once a week may be slow but they’ll probably be ok.
Meanwhile, it’s the people who have no physical/mental impairment who blow through stop signs and rights on red, who speed excessively, who drive drunk, who text and drive, who drive trucks bigger than they can keep in the lane, who can’t park between the lines, who rage drive ……. There are a lot of dangerous drivers who have nothing to do with being elderly, and many of these behaviors are more likely to cause injury/death
I’m not blaming older people, I blame drivers in general. As a pedestrian, I take bad drivers very seriously, but I also recent moved away from a town that had a large population of elderly people who drove and there would be multiple accidents a month caused by elderly drivers as well. Bad drivers are bad drivers, but age only makes it worse.
The idea someone gets lisenced once and never retests for decades is absurd. Road rules, car technology, bad habits, and health issues all may change drastically over that time period. Regular retesting would be expensive but should be done. Make the drivers pay for it and use it to reduce the subsidizing of roads.
Where I am in the US, there’s no longer Drivers’ Ed. class in public schools, and DMV road tests are so far behind that you have to schedule your test appointment two years in advance.
I’m guessing a major metro area? If you have a friend or relative that will drive you to and from the test, you may find that calling around to the various close by counties can get you tested much faster.
There will be for profit drives ed schools in your area, unless you live in AK, I don’t know what those run since I took it in school, but the racing licence schools are several thousand dollars, and worth every penny.
