How would you lower UK road deaths ?

[J4CKO]

1901 people died on our roads last year according to this article, and 1857 in 2010,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualt...

How would you lower these stats or is it ineviatable we have this many fatalities ?

The trend had been down for a good few years but it went up by 44 last year, will it go up again this year ?

[Rotary Madness]

Maybe actually teach people to drive, instead of just how to pass a rather useless test. Teach people how to control a car, 99% of the population have no idea about balancing, weight shift under breaking, what to do in a slide etc...

Also Actually retest people once they hit a certain age eg60, instead of just letting them post off for it.

[delmatt]

Replace some speed cameras with actual police people. When I was a new driver in the early 80s you were always aware that you could get stopped by a local police car and drove pretty carefully with insurance etc.

Actually stop and penalise people with bad driving habits who are totally unaware of whats going on around them etc etc.

[Codswallop]

Find a way of disabling mobile phones the second a person gets in the driver's seat of a car. Lots of terrible driving I see seems to be related to inattention, often caused by phone usage.

[rfn]

Teach people to drive properly.

Things like the Under 17 Car Club can help - and they've proved it with their 2006 and 2012 Surveys of ex-Members. This methodology needs expanding.

[DrTre]

Rotary Madness said:

Maybe actually teach people to drive, instead of just how to pass a rather useless test. Teach people how to control a car, 99% of the population have no idea about balancing, weight shift under breaking, what to do in a slide etc...

Also Actually retest people once they hit a certain age eg60, instead of just letting them post off for it.

That. Except I'd say have an annual resit, for everyone, and make it harder.

Also, with exceptions for those who are physically unable, everyone should be made to do the CBT to teach them exactly what being vulnerable means.

Natch, should be more trafpol to nick/"advise" people for poor lane positioning, not indicating on roundabouts, lack of road awareness etc etc...you know...the other 84% of reasons that contribute to road accidents aside from "inappropriate speed for the conditions"

There are too many people on the road who shouldn't be, it's not a right. Can't drive? Tough st, off to the bus with you.

Oh and I'm well aware I probably fit into some of these categories at one time or another....

[Strawman]

J4CKO said:

How would you lower these stats or is it ineviatable we have this many fatalities ?

Pretty much, maybe robot cars will improve things when they become common in 10-15 years time, the road death figures today in the UK are comparable to the 1890's when it was horse drawn traffic.

[HustleRussell]

Harder driving test, night time curfew on provisional license and probation period. Subsidised mandatory 5-yearly re-tests and medicals for 60+ drivers or those with chronic health problems which effect driving. I would pay for this by increasing the driving test fee for new drivers

[CraigyMc]

J4CKO said:

1901 people died on our roads last year according to this article, and 1857 in 2010,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualt...

How would you lower these stats or is it ineviatable we have this many fatalities ?

The trend had been down for a good few years but it went up by 44 last year, will it go up again this year ?

Why is zero the target for road deaths?

[Agrispeed]

Wasn't the stats on that skewed? It was something like 30 pedestrians were killed on the roads or something IIRC?

[em177]

DrTre said:

Except I'd say have an annual resit, for everyone, and make it harder.

This. Once you've ridden a bike with double the stopping distance of a car, and unable to swerve as fast etc. You grow 10x more alert to what's going on around you.

[sandman77]

People are always going to crash cars. That is a fact. Where there is human involvement mistakes will be made. That is a fact of life. Bearing this in mind ( you can't stop people crashing), the only way to reduce fatalities is to make cars safer or slow people down. Reducing speed greatly reduces the injury severity. This is also a fact. How do you slow people down? Education, Engineering and Enforcement. The 3 E's of road safety.

[Jimbo.]

Driver education, Finland-stylee (logbook, hours etc).

[em177]

MajorTom said:

One very easy way would be to increase the minimum age for driving to 25.....most bad driving I see is by irresponsible youngsters.

I don't say this often. But bks.

That is all.

[GoneAnon]

em177 said:

MajorTom said:

One very easy way would be to increase the minimum age for driving to 25.....most bad driving I see is by irresponsible youngsters.

I don't say this often. But bks.

That is all.

+1

[HustleRussell]

Oh yeah, I forgot to say M/ways on driving lessons and tests.

[mph1977]

Rotary Madness said:

Maybe actually teach people to drive, instead of just how to pass a rather useless test. Teach people how to control a car, 99% of the population have no idea about balancing, weight shift under breaking, what to do in a slide etc...

Also Actually retest people once they hit a certain age eg60, instead of just letting them post off for it.

The biggest problem to this is the race to the bottom in driving instruction despite the ADI system. That said, there is a very anti -AD mindset among some ADIs whose spittle flecked frothing has AD people as both curtain twitching anoraks and reckless 'Starsky and Hutch' ( or Bodie and Doyle, or Regan and Carter) wannabes in the same sentence ...

Even if we don't formally retest at 70 , a medical, eye and hearing tests along the lines of the Group 2 licence medical but with appropriate standards would be beneficial. (where it's only required at present if older drivers want to keep their grandfather rights to C1 and D1). some kind of insurance sponsored / supported system of check drives might be useful as well ...

[J4CKO]

CraigyMc said:

J4CKO said:

1901 people died on our roads last year according to this article, and 1857 in 2010,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualt...

How would you lower these stats or is it ineviatable we have this many fatalities ?

The trend had been down for a good few years but it went up by 44 last year, will it go up again this year ?

Why is zero the target for road deaths?

I would have thought that is the aim, yes.

We cant have a minus figure and bring back people from the dead so pretty sure nobody dying or being injured would be the ultimate aim.

[sandman77]

HustleRussell said:

Oh yeah, I forgot to say M/ways on driving lessons and tests.

No, very few people die on the motorway. In fact they are by far the safest roads in the country.

[Strawman]

Gaz. said:

perhaps if there was a requirement for a 1 hour lesson atleast once a week for a year???

I think the Netherlands driving test is like this, possibly 45 lessons before the test IIRC, Germany has a stringent regime as well. Neither are safer than the UK though, or they could be on a given year depending on how you measure the figures but the figures are quite close, sometimes the UK is the safest sometimes Sweden e.t.c. (deaths and serious RTAs per km driven, or a percentage of vehicles on the road).