Saturday 9 November 2013
Driving test age rise considered for teenagers
Continue reading the main story
Ministers are due to publish a Green Paper this year after considering the Transport Research Laboratory's report.
It recommends a one-year "learner stage" beginning at 17, during which drivers would have to total at least 100 hours of daytime and 20 hours of night-time driving practice under supervision.
Learners can then take their test at 18 and, if they pass, will get a probationary licence and have to display a green "P" plate.
During this stage, drivers will face the curfew and all those under 30 will be banned from carrying any passengers also under 30.
Other proposals under consideration for young drivers are a ban on all mobile phone use, including hands-free phones, and a lower alcohol limit.
After the 12-month probationary period, drivers will automatically graduate to a full licence and unrestricted driving.
Statistics show that more than a fifth of deaths on British roads in 2011 involved drivers aged 17-24.
The report suggests implementing this new system could cut annual casualty numbers by 4,471 and save £224m.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: "Young drivers drive around 5% of all the miles driven in Britain but are involved in about 20% of the crashes where someone is killed or seriously injured.
"We are committed to improving safety for young drivers and reducing their insurance costs - that is why we are publishing a Green Paper later in the year setting out our proposals.
"This will include a discussion about how people learn to drive.
"The research report has been produced by the Transport Research Laboratory under commission by the Department for Transport and it, amongst other things, has informed the Green Paper."
Proposals welcomed
RAC Foundation motoring research charity, director S. Glaister, welcomed the proposals.
He said: "Young people are four times more likely to die in a road accident than as a result of drink or drugs. "Yet, as a society we seem to turn a blind eye to the carnage. If this was any other area of public health there would be an outcry.
"This is about ensuring their long-term safety and mobility. Not curtailing it."
President of motoring organisation AA, Edmund King said the proposals were addressing the problem of young drivers in the "wrong way".
"You should prepare young drivers to be safe when they get their licence rather than give them their licence and then restrict them," he told BBC's Breakfast.
He said he would like to see mandatory lessons on motorways, in rural areas and in bad weather, and warned of the problems of policing the restrictions such as carrying young passengers.
Julie Townsend, of road safety charity Brake, welcomed the report, saying it was further recognition of the compelling case for graduated driver licensing.
She urged the government to act "swiftly and decisively" to commit to the system to help reduce the danger young drivers posed to themselves and others.
Currently drivers in England, Scotland and Wales need to pass a theory test, then a practical test before they can apply for a full driving licence. The minimum age to hold a full car licence is 17, or 16 for some people claiming mobility benefit.
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True Cost of Deisel
British Drivers are having to pay 4th highest diesel prices in the world.
The average pump price in the UK is 141p per litre, only behind Norway, Italy and Turkey.
In contrast, drivers in Venezuela can fill their tanks with diesel for the equivalent of 1p per litre. While pump prices in UK may be high, diesel drivers in many other countries are worse off, as motorist in UK only spend about 7.9% of their monthly disposable income
World’s Most Expensive Diesel
Country
|
Price per Litre
|
Avg m’thly income
|
Avg. m’thly diesel spend
|
% Spent on Diesel
| |
1
|
Norway
|
150p
|
£2707
|
£142
|
5.2
|
2
|
Italy
|
147p
|
£1366
|
£139
|
10.2
|
3
|
Turkey
|
144p
|
£525
|
£136
|
25.9
|
4
|
UK
|
141p
|
£1700
|
£133
|
7.9
|
5
|
Israel
|
138p
|
£1170
|
£130
|
11.2
|
6
|
Sweden
|
135p
|
£1962
|
£127
|
6.5
|
7
|
Denmark
|
133
|
£2177
|
£125
|
5.8
|
World’s Cheapest Diesel
Country
|
Price per Litre
|
Avg m’thly income
|
Avg. m’thly diesel spend
|
% Spent on Diesel
| ||
1
|
Venezuela
|
1p
|
£320
|
£0.95
|
0.3
| |
2
|
Iran
|
2p
|
£320
|
£1.89
|
0.6
| |
3
|
Saudi Arabia
|
5p
|
£1194
|
£4.74
|
0.4
| |
4
|
Libya
|
10p
|
£380
|
£9.47
|
2.5
| |
5
|
Bahrain
|
10p
|
£723
|
£9.47
|
1.3
| |
6
|
Turkmenistan
|
13p
|
£160
|
£12.31
|
7.7
| |
7
|
Qatar
|
15p
|
£2601
|
£14.21
|
0.6
|
This data was compiled by looking4Parking.com, from range of sources.
Friday 8 November 2013
Damage Repair Quotes A Click Away
A new online service has been launched to take the hassle out of a car repairs by offering motorists personalised quotes from local body repair shops. Car Body Bids allows drivers to upload photographs of their damaged cars. Garages can then put in bids with their best prices for the repair.
To get a quote, the owner takes a photo of the damage and uploads this, along with brief description of the job, to the carbodybids.com site, or via the company’s smart phone app. The platform then sends the image to a range of local body shops and mobile body repair networks, who send back a price to fix the problem. Bids from rated tradesmen are sent directly, either by email or to the smartphone, and the motorist can choose their preferred winning bid. It takes just few minutes to upload a repair job request and the service is free to use. Body shops select the job they want to bid for, so motorist are more likely to find a specialist or those best placed to complete the work.
Founder of car body bids Oliver O’brian created the business after being constantly frustrated by the time, money and fuel he was wasting driving from garage to garage trying to obtain a quote. He said “ We have designed Car Body Bids to be an easy way to use as possible, so motorist no longer need to spend the best part of a day looking for a garage to get their car fixed”.
Sunday 29 September 2013
Manchester's new 'super' traffic cameras catch out 10,000 motorists in just SIX weeks
If each £60 fine was paid in full, council bosses would rake in almost £600,000 - the 17 cameras cost a total of £255,000
New super traffic cameras have caught out almost 10,000 motorists in just SIX weeks.
The 15 cameras – which cost £17,000 each – have been installed on some of the busiest commuter routes across Manchester
And the M.E.N. HAS revealed that between August 5 and September 15 the council issued 9,698 tickets to motorists breaching bus lanes – an average of 1,600 per week.
It means if each £60 fine was paid in full, council bosses would rake in £581,880.
Even if every motorist paid their fines within 14 days at the reduced rate of £30 the council would still net £290,940.
So far Manchester
Each device has two hi-tech cameras and includes night vision capabilities – enabling them to catch up to 50 times more motorists than previous models.
The cameras, which target motorists who illegally use bus lanes, were installed last month across the city on routes including Cheetham Hill Road
Councillor Nigel Murphy, executive member for environment at Manchester
He said: “It’s quite simple – if you don't do the crime you’re not going to pay the fine.”
The 15 ZenGrab LaneWatch Mk2 cameras are on track to rake in between £3m and £6m a year, but Coun Murphy insisted the cash would not subsidise general council spending that was slashed at start of the year. He said the money will be re-invested in the public transport system, highways and the environment.
The news came as Eric Pickles, secretary of state for communities and local government, said that councils in England
He said: “The devices should be used to tackle crime and not to raise money for councils.”
Coun Murphy denied that the new cameras would be used in this way, claiming residents and businesses are crying out for effective enforcement.
But he conceded there is always a revenue when there is a fine.
Monday 23 September 2013
How dangerous are elderly drivers?
The number of over-70s holding a UK driving licence has exceeded four million for the first time. But how dangerous are older drivers?
There are occasional very well-publicised stories about elderly drivers going the wrong way on a motorway or dual carriageway. Only last week an 84-year-old woman died after driving the wrong way on the A1 in Northumberland.
The RAC Foundation says the UK's oldest licensed driver is a 107-year-old woman, and there are 191 people over the age of 100 with a licence. They are among 4,018,900 people aged over 70 with full UK driving licences.
The Department for Transport (DfT) says there is no evidence older drivers are more likely to cause an accident, and it has no plans to restrict licensing or mandate extra training on the basis of age.
There were 10,974 accidents involving drivers over the age of 70 in 2011, says the DfT. That compares with 11,946 accidents involving 17-to-19-year-old drivers and 24,007 accidents involving 20-to-24-year-old drivers. These statistics do not account for who caused the accident.
Figures also show that 46 drivers aged 16 to 19 died in an accident, while 173 drivers aged between 20 and 29 involved in an accident died. That compared with 59 deaths in drivers aged between 70 and 79 involved in an accident, and 52 over the age of 80.
The young-versus-old driver data is used by a number of road safety charities to argue elderly drivers don't pose the greatest danger behind the wheel.
Research by the RAC Foundation suggests drivers aged 75 and over make up 6% of all licence holders but account for just 4.3% of all deaths and serious injuries. By contrast, drivers aged 16-20 make up just 2.5% of all drivers but 13% of those killed and seriously injured.
"There are huge benefits to people driving, it helps them feel empowered. What we want people to do is see their optician regularly, and go to independent assessment centres if they are concerned," she says.
"There's some evidence that suddenly stopping driving and a lack of mobility leads to depression, so we want to keep people independent for as long as possible. The key thing is for people to start preparing for it early so they have other options,"
Sunday 8 September 2013
42 Penalty points motorist still driving around
A woman from Isleworth in west London accumulated 42 points last year, statistics from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) highlighted by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) showed. The points were all for failing to disclose the identity of the driver between May 26 and December 21 last year.
Drivers can be banned if they accumulate 12 penalty points on their licence over a three-year period.
The IAM said the second-highest points total was 36 - for a person still driving went to a man from Warrington, Cheshire, who was caught driving without insurance six times in less than two weeks between February and March last year.
Other notable still-driving offenders included: a man from Southend with 30 points, who was caught speeding 10 times between March 2011 and August 2012; a man from Blackburn with 29 points, who was caught speeding eight times between September and November 2011; and a man from Pevensey, East Sussex, with 24 points who was caught speeding six times in two weeks between September 30 and October 13 last year.
IAM chief executive Simon Best said: "DVLA and the courts service are upgrading their computer systems to ensure that offence information is shared more efficiently, but this is not due to be in place until October. When drivers with 10 speeding offences are getting away with holding a licence, these improvements cannot come quickly enough."
He went on: "The IAM has no sympathy for owners who refuse to reveal the identity of the driver, and we would welcome an urgent consultation on new ways to deal with this problem. Drivers must expect that 12 penalty points means a driving ban or the whole system falls into disrepute."
A spokesman for HM Courts & Tribunals Service said: "The vast majority of drivers who get 12 or more penalty points are fined and disqualified from driving. Magistrates can use their discretion to not enforce a driving ban if doing so would cause exceptional hardship, such as losing a job or the ability to care for a dependant. A fine will still be enforced. Only a very small number of cases are affected by the data-sharing issue and we are working closely with DVLA to improve this."
A DVLA spokesman said: "The DVLA's role is to record the information provided by the courts. The courts are able to use their discretion to decide whether or not to disqualify a driver."
Saturday 7 September 2013
Young Drivers Welcome Night Driving
Research conducted by Road Safety analysis on behalf of Michelin showed that 40% of young drivers aged between 17 and 25 would welcome compulsory motorway lessons and night driving.
The Study also revealed that young drivers in rural areas are twice as likely to be involved in accidents as those drivers in urban areas.
Michelin’s head of government affairs, Darren Lindsey said: “ It is not the fact that rural roads are inherently more dangerous than urban roads. The fact is that young drivers are more likely to crash, either because they feel more confident driving at speeds, negotiating bends or driving on unlit roads.”
Not all of the government’s proposals received backing from young drivers. Only 14% of respondents back a year’s minimum learning period and only 1 in 10 backed post test curfews.
The survey questions were put to 700 young drivers for too much, too young, too fast report, which provides a compelling case for some of the DfT’s green paper proposals.
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