It starts off by saying that research at Plymouth University has shown that elderly drivers are no more likely to die in road accidents than 20-year olds. Without saying so outright, there is obviously an implication about older drivers being no worse than younger ones.
But the “study” also found that older people are five times more likely to die as pedestrians (being hit by cars). I’m not sure what this implies.
The leader of the “study” said:
You shouldn’t assume that your granddad should avoid getting behind the wheel because he won’t necessarily be safer walking down the street.
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? This “research” shows clearly that old people have lived longer than younger ones! Oooh. And that winter is coming.
Seriously, I haven’t got a clue what either the Australian source or the amateur nerds at Plymouth University are trying to say. All I know is that there is a worrying trend towards bad statistics these days. Too many A* GCSEs a few years ago, I think.
Another Telegraph article asks if older motorists are unfairly penalised. The short answer is, no – they bloody well aren’t!
Penalised, maybe. Unfairly? No.
All you have to do is look at what happened to Cassie McCord and Neil Colquhoun to see that any penalisation is based on sound facts. If you search this blog on the word “elderly” you’ll find examples of injuries also caused by older drivers.
Joan Bakewell – a TV personality I used to have the hots for when I was younger (look, it was an “older woman” thing”, all right?) – is 79, and when she travelled to Malta she wasn’t allowed to hire a car because the rental companies have a maximum allowed driver age of 75 in Malta. She says:
I was furious because people age at different speeds. It’s seriously discriminatory; there shouldn’t be an age limit. I have no problem having a medical or driving test to prove I’m a competent driver.
They might age at different speeds, Joan, but when they get older the relative rate of ageing increases. You might get someone who is 90 who is a better driver than someone else who is only 20 – but on average, everyone who is 90 is a worse driver than everyone who is 20! That’s just because they are 90.
That’s why they are penalised. It’s a damage limitation thing.
I love some of the job titles held by those involved:
Department for International Development
Training and Development Agency (responsible for improving teaching skills)
UK Hydrographic Office
The Ordnance Survey – they make maps
The Debt Management Office (there’s an oxymoron in there somewhere)
The Asset Protection Agency (they were set up to handle bank bailouts)
Ofcom – the media regulator
The National Offender Management Service’s (NOMS) human relations officer
The NOMS’ “director of change”
They’re all household names, aren’t they?
It should be pointed out that:
While some Government departments and agencies have felt ready to pay bonuses again, others have continued a self-imposed moratorium on such payments. No senior staff at the Electoral Commission, the Driving Standards Agency, the Office of Rail Regulation or the Independent Police Commission received bonuses in 2011/12.
This story cracked me up when I read it yesterday. A church in Spain – The Sanctuary of Mercy Church – has a semi-famous painting of Christ (shown here on the left). It has recently become damaged by damp. It’s not valuable, but as it’s over 100 years old it has some value for the locals and the Christian World in general.
The church had apparently (from the story I read yesterday) recently got funding to have it professionally restored.
But an old lady – in her 80s – got there before the restorers and fixed it herself (see image on the right). Church officials didn’t realise what she was doing until it was too late.
The old lady was obviously an early Gary Numan fan, and rumour has it that her next project will involve the Mona Lisa (see below).
Seriously (well, sort of), I’m sure the old lady in question had the best of intentions when she set to work – and you have to wonder at security (the story I read yesterday reported that there were guards at the church). But I would imagine that they don’t have a lot of problems with octogenarian graffiti artists under normal circumstances, so this one got in under the radar.
You have to remember that they take religion far more seriously in Spain, and that’s often even more true of the older people, so you can understand why she tried to do what she did.
The only thing you stumble over is the quality.
In fact, the original was very modern, whereas the amateur’s version looks mediaeval.
This came through in the feeds [dead link], and tells how a 15-year old learner killed her mother by running over her twice.
It isn’t from a reputable news source and details are initially sketchy – until you look at one of the links, which reveals that it happened in Kentucky, USA. The mother, Kimberly Riggs, was conducting a lesson in a church car park. She was outside the vehicle with the door open when the car suddenly lurched forward. She was knocked down by the door, and the car left the church car park – but then it turned round, went through a fence and backyard of someone’s house, reversed into the car park again, did a 180 degree spin, and pinned the mother to a fence. The mother had apparently been chasing the car at the time. She died in hospital later.
It raises quite a few questions. But taking it at face value to eliminate some of the possibilities (conspiracy theories) both sources hint at, the main questions in my mind concern allowing people of such a young age to drive cars, and the dangers of automatic transmission in such cases.
I’ve heard some weird comments recently from ADIs in the UK extolling the virtues of automatics. Kimberly Riggs almost certainly wouldn’t have been killed if the car had been a manual transmission. It would probably have just stalled – if not in the first instance, at some point during its odd path out of, and back into, the car park.
Automatics may be easier to learn in. But dumbing down the learning-to-drive process unnecessarily makes little sense when you hear a story like this one.
As I mentioned recently, learning in an automatic car is the only way some people are ever going to have hope of gaining a full driving licence. Those with certain disabilities are obviously included. But there is no way that any of that makes learning in an auto a “better” choice for the majority of drivers.
The original source also raises the valid point about why someone whose control of the car was apparently so poor was left inside alone in the first place.
This story came in on the newsfeed. It tells how a learner driver, Stuart McCulloch, was jailed for causing a crash in which his friend, Michael Cameron, was killed.
Even though McCulloch was over the drink drive limit, and he lied to police about who was driving, the story has some poignancy. Not much, but some.
But the bit that surprised me most of all was the fact that he was banned from holding or obtaining a driving licence for 10 years. In England it’d probably be two years at the most, with the distinct possibility of not even a ban if there was some idiotic mitigating yarn spun by the defence lawyer.
Nice to see that the American educational system is no better than ours. After years of dumbing down and inflated grades to make people look better than they are, the same people seem to be at universities, demonstrating a very rudimentary understanding of accident statistics and the factors which affect them.
This report (via The Telegraph) from MIT says that mobile phone bans in cars might be ineffective because those who use mobiles are already bad drivers.
I would hope that most of those reading this can already see the obvious problem with this statement. If someone is already a bad driver, using a mobile phone will just make them worse.
The study leader, Bryan Reimer, is quoted (it’s an American quote, hence the spelling):
It’s clear that cell phones in and of themselves impair the ability to manage the demands of driving.
But the fundamental problem may be the behavior of the individuals willing to pick up the technology.
You cannot possibly suggest that using a mobile phone doesn’t impair your ability to concentrate on driving, yet that’s what this guy is implying in spite of that first sentence. Why do so many academics try to be clever and find conflict or uncertainty where there is none? If you fiddle with the radio or CD, try to open a packet of sweets or sandwiches, tip your head back to drink, try to feed the sprog in the baby seat at the side of or behind you… or piss about with your mobile phone, then you are distracted.
Banning the use of mobile phones – and enforcing it with hefty penalties – addresses just one part of the overall problem. People being rubbish drivers at the genetic level is part of the same problem, but totally unconnected with mobile phone distraction while driving.
To make matters worse, the “study” only involved 108 people, and those were split into three age groups (giving only 36 per group if it was an equal split). They were also “asked” to grade themselves as frequent or infrequent mobile phone users while driving (so objectivity has just sailed away over the horizon).
The findings were reported earlier this month in ‘Accident Analysis & Prevention’ and may explain why cell phone bans do not seem to work.
‘Cell phone bans have reduced cell phone use by drivers, but the perplexing thing is that they haven’t reduced crashes,’ said Russ Rader, a spokesperson for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Virginia…
They don’t work because the whole issue is far more complex than this “study” has assumed, and people just ignore the bans, for God’s sake! In the UK, you’re looking at a fixed penalty of £60 and 3 points on your licence at the very least. If it goes to court then £1,000 and a ban is quite likely. Yet when I’m out on the roads, it can be as many as 50% of other road users pratting about on phones at traffic lights (i.e. when I get chance to look). Some of them – predominantly women, I’m afraid – are obviously texting or networking, and not merely talking.
‘There is no question in anyone’s mind that talking on a cell phone increases risk,’ said Reimer.
Then why bloody well suggest the opposite, and say to the media that bans don’t work? The only logical action from that is to change the law so people can use them, especially as far as the typical journalist’s brain in concerned. And that’s just stupid when you’ve also just said that using one increases risk!
As I say, the whole issue is far more complex, and extant research – on many more people – has shown:
…that if you’re using any mobile phone when driving, you’re four times more likely to crash. You also have significantly worse reaction times than someone driving after drinking alcohol at the legal limit.
To find out how difficult it is to focus on several things while driving, try the Driving Challenge. This online game highlights the dangers of using your phone when driving.
See that? See how complex it is, now that we know that those genetically bad drivers are still potentially (no research has tried to nitpick this aspect separately yet) affected by distraction more with their mobiles than they are with alcohol?
The MIT “study” only really shows that driver attitude and character might be a factor in distraction.It absolutely does not prove that phone bans don’t work, The accident statistics are too complex for such an immature conclusion to be drawn from such limited and flawed (allowing people to grade themselves) data.
This story on the BBC is interesting. A National Express bus crashed into, and killed, a pedestrian – it was doing 62mph in a 50mph zone.
Just to clarify that: it was doing a measured 12mph over the speed limit. Or in other words, the speedo in the cab was likely to be showing closer to 70mph.
When I’m on the motorway driving at the speed limit I am frequently overtaken by National Express coaches. They often pass at quite considerable relative speed. I very rarely overtake one myself. A bit like Audis, really.
I half-jokingly warn my pupils to be careful around them because they’re “Exocet missiles with custom body jobs”.
A passenger on the bus said that the driver “reacted quickly”. I can’t see how this is going to cancel out that thing about driving over the speed limit.
This story in a Finnish news journal caught my eye – initially because the translated title is ambiguous, saying “Anyone can teach driving a car”.
In fact, the story gets more interesting when you realise that at the moment, driving schools and family members are the only ones who can teach people to drive in Finland. Parents are not even allowed to teach their own kids if they’re not living at the same address.
However, from January next year this is going to change. In theory, anyone will be allowed to teach learners to drive – but police will decide who to award teaching permits to.
The change is actually a common sense one. The family restriction must be hellishly difficult for people in many cases, and it doesn’t really alter the quality of instruction the learner receives. The supervising driver – the Finnish source calls them “instructors”, which is another translation ambiguity – must have held a licence for 3 years, use a training vehicle with secondary brakes fitted, and have passed a special test. The permit granted will last for 9 months (which it does at present).
Even this is far more stringent than what we have in the UK.
The Finnish system will also require that every learner take special training with a proper driving school. The article also implies that more hours will be required, but it doesn’t go into any detail.
What a shame UK politician haven’t got the balls to introduce something even close to this.
ploughed into another car leaving four people needing hospital treatment
15 previous court appearances for 62 other offences
14 convictions for driving while banned
leaving the scene of an accident (with wheel spin)
failing to report an accident
skidmarks 10m long
lying to police about being involved
aggravated vehicle taking
driving without a licence/while disqualified
driving without insurance
driving under the influence of alcohol
But hey! His defence lawyer, Laurence Jones, said he had shown “genuine remorse”. Fortunately, the Recorder (or Magistrate) knew that this was complete bullshit, saying:
You are a menace to road users. You cannot or will not learn from the sentences the court has imposed on you in the past.
Rarely, if ever, have I seen a motoring record that compares to yours. It is appalling. I regret the powers I have are so limited.
He was jailed for 16 months (so he’ll be out just after Christmas, probably) and banned for 3 years.
This 
But an old lady – in her 80s – got there before the restorers and fixed it herself (see image on the right). Church officials didn’t realise what she was doing until it was too late.
This 
Nice to see that the American educational system is no better than ours. After years of dumbing down and inflated grades to make people look better than they are, the same people seem to be at universities, demonstrating a very rudimentary understanding of accident statistics and the factors which affect them.
This