was on 1 point for a year then got done 93 in a 60 zone. licence gone. got sent a letter saying that my suspension would start at a certain date at midnight (6 months). the night before, at 11:24pm I got done 174 in a 110 zone, instant 6 months. I was well above the speed limit when I spotted the camera and just kept into it, thinking they might not get me because I was going to fast.

about 3 months later I got busted driving home from work and had to go to court. copped 6 months and a $350 fine.

all up I served 9 months out of a possible 18 months. I was lucky that I didnt have to serve all the suspensions 1 after the other. have had my licence back for 8 months now and I drive alot more carefully than I used to

You know it's funny that we say that driver education before getting a license is tantamount to safer roads....what about the current drivers that hold licenses and equate more to the traffic than new drivers, sure they have years of experience but I'll put money on the fact that theres a hell of a lot of licensed drivers out there with minimal skill driving on the road every day....what do we do with them?

I know coming from a small (well it was back then) country town the requirement for my old girl to get her license was to drive 50 meters up the road and do a three point turn...She wasnt even supposed to be going for her license on the day, the local copper had called into they're bakery to take my Aunt out to do her test but she was at the Dentist when he turned up, so he told mum to jump in and take it with nill to minimal prior driving experience....

This was 30 odd years ago but she still holds the license to this day....

Exactly right dags, I spose retesting would be seen as an insult to alot of people, so that's why giving younger drivers the skills to know how to react to a bad driver would be advantagous. I'm not sying older drivers are bad drivers, but they can (and I do too) develop bad driving habits

I'm all for mandatory re-testing. Theory every five and practical every 10 or 15 years.

Problem being, as sensible as it is, nobody will introduce due to the fear of loosing votes.

exactly, and people will think that the government is calling them useless (which if they fail the test, obviously they are)

I'm all for mandatory re-testing. Theory every five and practical every 10 or 15 years.

Problem being, as sensible as it is, nobody will introduce due to the fear of loosing votes.

Instead of penalising those who are maintaining there high standard of driving skills and knowledge of the road rules, perhaps we could re-test those who are detected breaking the road rules and those who are in at fault crashes. Then in turn, we would not piss off the majority of voters and greater support would be attained.

I.B.

Can see the logic in that, and it'd be better than how it is at the moment, but I'm sure there are plenty of bad drivers out there that cause accidents and have never received an infringement. Just because someone has been caught and fined doesn’t necessarily make them at higher risk of causing injury or death on the roads, unless of course you believe the propaganda being rammed down our throats.

I've had three not-at-fault claims with my last ute and not one of the other drivers were charged with anything as the police are not interested in attending the scene unless there is damage to public property or significant injury. All three of these people were obviously lacking in ability but they are free to get back out there and cause more carnage. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Instead of penalising those who are maintaining there high standard of driving skills and knowledge of the road rules, perhaps we could re-test those who are detected breaking the road rules and those who are in at fault crashes. Then in turn, we would not piss off the majority of voters and greater support would be attained.

I.B.

Great idea, although if you are going to retest those that have been detected breaking road rules, you are retestingthe majority of the population anyway if this poll is any indication.

Personally I am not as worried about peoples theoretical knowledge as I am in their ability to control a car. After all, regardless of the laws, people will do what they want to a degree whether they know the road rules or not. How many times have you seen people cross double lines or speed or fail to stop at a stop sign? Everyone knows what the road laws are regarding these yet it's common to see these rules broken. I would like to see more focus on car control. Throw people into an advanced driving course to learn how to control a car on the limit before they get a licence. Then have the retest in that environment every 5 years.

If this were implemented and we now had a population full of drivers ( rather than just commuters) the next step would be to use our taxes to build some awesome muli lane roads built to travel on at high speed while also preventing things like head ons, etc, and let us do 150+kph on the opened road. After all, modern cars are made to do these speeds comfortably and with the driver training and road system in place, getting to your destination quicker would lessen the fatigue factor, which is the real culprit in deaths on our Hwys.

Yeah I know. I'm dreaming!

Edited 18/09/08 07:13 AM18/09/08 07:13 AM by craiginmackay

sounds like a nice dream though

its all just revenue raising if u ask me