BlueAdept

I just happened to have a camera in the car when what should happen in front of me but:-



I'll leave you to decide what happend because I don't get it... he didn't actually hit another car...

PoLaK

iTrader: (1)

Old pp shouldn't drive cars.

Spining Ncnratr

Is that a Vaxhall in the foreground. It really looks like they over riddin the curb and took the whole front bumper cover off.

BlueAdept

That curb is only about 2 inches high... and that's a stop light on the ground to the right... I really wish I saw what happened... I was there about 5 seconds too late...

Edit: - Notice the wheel and suspention turret on the right completely wrenched off the car!

Takumi

holy shis ties. If it didnt hit another car . It it a pole or it got clipped by another big truck?

cueball

I agree with PoLaK about old people driving. When i was running after school an old lady tired to kill the whole cross country team. She was riding the curb and honking her horn and would not move. She came within a half foot of killing my friend.

Aesculapius

Hold on a second everyone.....elderly people get slammed for things all the time. Let's review a couple things.

1. Reaction times do decrease with age, but at different rates for everyone. Example: Chuck Yeager could still kick all of our asses in anything that flies.

2. Vision does change with time. I don't know how many of you wear glasses....I do. Let me use the same example. Chuck Yeager still has 20/15 vision!!!

3. These people have more experience driving than all of us.


The ability to drive is a serious independence issue for all of us. Think what it would be like for you if no one in your household could drive. How would you get to work? Get food? Visit your friends? Get to the doctor? Now imagine someone taking that ability away from you.....not because you are not capable, but because of your age. Taking the ability to drive away from people sucks. I have had to do it in my practice.

I guess my point is that there are plenty of shitty YOUNG AND MIDDLE AGED drivers out there.

Lets not stereotype and say "old people shouldn't drive." How about, "bad drivers shouldn't drive."

fuz

Ok, I'll rephrase that.

A lot of bad drivers are old people. :p Something about how they ignore a lot of things like: right of way, pedestrians, wait 5 seconds after the light goes green, and especially going well under the speed limits really tees me off. It's not just a few, it's like the numbers of senior bad drivers increase on an exponetial curve from age 60 and up. There is a retirement community not far from where I live so I get subjected to these sorts of drivers on a daily basis. As such, I've learned to give drivers with white hair PLENTY of room.

Anyway back to the topic, maybe the "old folks" there had a flat tire or something.

BlueAdept

I think it's a little unfair to slam all "old people"... many young drivers are bad too... for different reasons of course but all the same.

I think it's almost a natural backlash from those younger people once they realise that, dispite what their elders tell them regularly... they aren't necessarily the worst drivers on the road after all!

Grimace

If you are a bad driver when you are young, you are a bad driver when you are old.
Statistically speaking, the elderly cause less accidents than any other age group. Yes, their reaction time is worse, but do you guys and gals know that if you are over 22 you reaction times are significantly worse than when you were 18? Its a slippery slope, my friends.

fuz

I think that there was a study in the US over speed limits (kinda old) that stated 5% of the slowest drivers create 20% of all accidents. I don't know the rest of the pie chart, but that doesn't seem encouraging.

randyc

Interesting. But it would still mean that 80% of the accidents were not caused by the slow people. A statistic like that can be misleading as to type of accident also. I have no data, just pointing out that deaths per age is probably more meaningful, because slow old people may have more slower accidents.

I did do some accident rate research a couple years ago and there was a curve that showed the younger drivers were involved in a much larger rate of accidents and that curve went down as the drivers matured, up until the mid 60s or 70s. Then it went back up again.

The good thing is that a lot of older drivers don't put on the miles at the same rate, and they drive at non-rush hour times. Want to see the city's worse drivers? Drive at 10:30am. That is when I go out...oh...wait a minute.

wakeech

yes, it's true... bad drivers are of all ages, and they should be culled out rather than one demographic or another...

actually, i really think that going to a more european system (where they like, CARE about your driving skill), with better driver training... then we wouldn't get so many yahoos in their mom and dad's SUV cutting me off in my Echo... jeez... i hate those things...

anyhoo, yes, bad drivers suck the most when they're young, then gradually become mediocre (like my mom... god, i can't stand letting her drive me anywhere), then obviously get worse as they get older.... this kinda worries me 'cause i know she's an awful driver underneath all of her learned bad-habits, and one day she'll go from "middle-aged" to "old", and like so much milk past it's best before date, will loose her mediocre abilities on the road... <<sigh>>

but again, a tougher system, with more expensive licenses and tests and DEFINITELY MORE DRIVER TRAINING, is definitely in order for all of North America...

rxtreme

iTrader: (1)

You're basically outlining the system already in place in much of Europe (Germany, anyway). The speed limits are much higher, they consume more alchohol per capita than any other country in the world, have stricter fines (for DWI's and such), but there are WAY fewer accidents. Simply because they teach their drivers how to drive well and how to drive responsibly. It costs them somewhere in the neighborhood of two grand (U.S. dollars) to get their license. There is an extensive drivers education program that lasts well over a year (it may be closer to two) and I think the eligible age for a drivers license is older than the U.S., as well. BlueAdept can probably shed more light on the subject since he's still over there and it's been a little while since I've been. At any rate, the involvement for getting a license is way higher. Serious applicants only.

BlueAdept

Getting a licence in the UK is getting harder all the time... it's not as hard as some other places in europe, but it's way harder than it used to be... Extensive theory test before you can even think about an actual driving test.

I think that's the way forward... plus spread out the learning process over a longer time... perhaps have an "Accompanied only" licence.

Speed limits here and most places for that matter,,,, are not flexible enough... The limit here on a motorway (freeway) is 70Mph... which was set in the 50's when everyone was driving on crossply tyres, drum brakes..... and when most dedicated racing cars would have trouble keeping up with hald the cars on the road now.

We have variable speed limits to reduce the speed limit in some places when there is congestion or poor conditions... but I really think that those should also increase the limit by up to 30-40Mph in good conditions when there is very little traffic. Most people drive at 90 anyway and if there were times when that was legal they might be more inclined to pay attention when it wasn't...

Also, the variable limits are abused a lot, so people ignore them.... Last night at 2am I was driving home along a 4 lane motorway and due to roadworks it was reduced to 1 lane.... well... concidering that there was good visibility and I couldn't see any cars either infront or behind me... I found a limit of 20 Mph somwhat commical... since any fool should be able to drive down a 12 foot coned off lane at any speed they could with an empty lane either side..... especially since that lane was wider than some 2 way roads with 60 limits on.

Aesculapius

Check this site out.....

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/finalr...e2=All_Victims


You can see that there is a spike in accident related fatalities in the over 75 age bracket, but that is still much lower than anything between 16 and 54.

Quick_lude

Don't get me started on bad drivers and how easy it is to get a licence here in Toronto.. Only recently did the graduating licence was introduced.. but people here need so much training, it's incredible. Driving slow in the passing lane, driving in the passing lane when the two right lanes are wide open, too slow on the on ramp, making turns into the right lane instead of sticking to the left, talking on the cell phone and weaving, driving with your right hand behind the passenger seat headrest, etc, etc... Personally I think every driver should be fully retested every 5yrs. At 55 yrs old every 2-3 years. At 70 yrs old, EVERY YEAR.

I know how some people say that without a drivers licence it would cut off their freedom and believe me I know where you are coming from. I love my car and the freedom it gives me.. BUT a drivers licence is a PRIVILEGE not a right and if anyone at any age is becoming a danger due to their deteriorating skills, that's it. Licence revoked.

We had a case here in Toronto about 1-2 yrs ago where an elderly lady hit someone and dragged her for about 1-2 kms while the victim was screaming for her to stop. The lady kept driving home and killed the unfortunate woman.

fuz

Personally I think public transportation would be much better if driving licences were harder to get, so I think it's only to benefit by only having a smaller group of highly trained drivers on the road.

Takumi

I think driving mostly contributes to attitude.
There are those who get a fever of anger. and those who are very defensive and theres those relaxed. Some people are over confident. Some that have lilttle confidence in them selves.
Most older people would feel confident because they consider them selves experienced. Personally i think its not about the physical age but more so the mental age. for older people. They shouldn't be driving if they are not mentally capable driving a car.