Urban legend or element of truth?

gozunda

I have heard various rumours that someone in the bowels of one of the government departments were thinking about introducing a retest for existing and legit licence holder drivers of cars ie B licence holders

I am posting it here as i don't think it has much if any relevance ( I would hope) to learning to drive sub section

Any one else heard this one?

Anan1

We have now.

Popoutman

Wouldn't be a bad idea at all to be honest. No harm in getting those that are complacent about their driving skills to be forced to brush up on them. It'll also catch those that got their licenses for free without passing a test back in the late 70's or early 80's..

May require a change in legislation to proceed.

biko

Never gonna happen.

Red Kev

Not an urban myth, it's occasionally mooted in the bowels of Brussels (and indeed it's been proposed by in Berlin a couple of times) that it would be a European wide thing, a minor retest at 70 years of age and every 5 years after that.

Certainly has it's advantages, my Dad gave up driving himself as he reckoned he wasn't fit to be on the road, plenty of other people worse than him still driving around here.

JustAddWater

biko wrote: »

Never gonna happen.

Should happen

If you're a good driver, there's no worries. There'll be people coming on here claiming its a cash cow, revenue raiser, etc, but what can you do?

What should be done is, anytime from 8 years into your 10 year licence you should have to sit a retest. This way you've 2 years to get it done (allowing for multiple fails etc) and if you dont pass by the time 10 years are up, you can renew for a learner permit

There's some amount of woeful driving in Ireland and complacency is a big problem. I can get a full licence when i'm 16 and 60 years later still be legally driving off the back of that?? Madness

Times and rules change and people need to keep up to date on that

Look at it this way, if you go to get an education and get a job, you need to constantly keep up to date with your profession. Why shouldn't it be the same here?

Atomic Pineapple

Indeed, it should happen, at a minimum everyone should have to resit at least some form of test if not the whole test again when renewing their licence every ten years, every five years would be better. It would maintain a much higher standard of driving and have people learn how to drive rather than learn how to pass a test and then drive however they want when they pass it.

the_syco

What would happen if one were to fail the test? As Learner drivers still drive about, how will the Gardai view someone who has failed their retest?

bmstuff

If the initial training was much better including motorway driving there would not be any need for a retest.

_Kaiser_

If this came in it'd purely be treated as another tax source by our government, and a boon to the private companies that are already doing quite well out of the current system.

With the exception of "cop-on" things like observation and rules of the road (which anyone should have/know before getting IN to a car in the first place!), the only benefit to the current test is car control/mechanics and experience of driving down the road.... but how many times have you reversed around a corner in a quiet housing estate this week for example?

Not to mention that motorway driving still isn't covered (although if you live outside Dublin you may get some N-road experience I suppose), parallel parking, emergency driving/driving in bad conditions etc - things that actually are essentials in daily motoring!

But like the NCT all the test shows is you followed the (again often outdated) rules on the day. It'll do nothing for how you drive the day after that because of the lack of enforcement of anything beyond "speeding" in this country :rolleyes:

But considering what they charge for the "test" and lessons and licenses I wouldn't be surprised to see it introduced alright!

biko

Can you imagine the rage from middle age men if this were to be implemented, even if free?

Scortho

At a minimum, before renewal of a licence a driver should have to do his theory test.
The amount of drivers who don't know the rules of the road is ridiculous.
Include it as part of the licence renewal fee to save on administration costs and hassle involved.

_Kaiser_

biko wrote: »

Can you imagine the rage from middle age men if this were to be implemented, even if free?

Yep.. it'd be the same as everything else.. lots of whinging down the pub and online but then (as the head of Revenue put it when referring to the Property Tax) people will just get on with quietly paying it

Which is why our leaders get to continue to come up with more levies/charges and taxes without protest .. I'm waiting for the "because we can" tax TBH :rolleyes:

vitani

If it would teach people how to drive properly at roundabouts, I'd be all for it.

Let's do it - it should cover:

Roundabouts
Motorways/Dual carriageways
How/when to use your lights (including indicators)
Moving the fcuk over when turning right

Anything I'm forgetting?

Yeh, never gonna happen.

_Kaiser_

Deleted User wrote: »

Moving the fcuk over when turning right

+1.. I had some oul bat sit in the driving lane yesterday waiting to turn right - despite the filter lane beside her designed for this purpose! :mad:

jamesr123

I hope this does happen. I am tired of being stuck behind old granny's who don't have a clue how to drive. I was behind one on the motorway today, weaving in and out of her lane, driving at a walking pace and looked terrified behind the wheel.

I have an uncle who's in his late 60's and he drives everywhere dangerously slow, has no clue about roundabouts, motorways and how he hasn't crashed yet is beyond me.


in general, it amazes me how little people know about signals at roundabouts and the correct lane to be in. Retest them all........

freshpopcorn

The problem is a lot of older people only tip around in there cars to go to the shop/post office/bingo. They actually don't cause a lot of serious accidents in general people who do cause serious accidents are generally younger people who has only passed there tests recently or with a few years.
If older peoples licences were taken off them they would be up war because a lot of these people's only means of getting around is there car and in rural
Ireland public transport isn't always available and they would protest on the steps of the dail like what happened with the medical cards and they won.

I do think it would be a good idea in some cases if drivers were re tested but it would be hard to introduce.

H3llR4iser

Deleted User wrote: »

Let's do it - it should cover:

Roundabouts
Motorways/Dual carriageways
How/when to use your lights (including indicators)
Moving the fcuk over when turning right

Anything I'm forgetting?

Yeh, never gonna happen.

Further suggestions:

Keeping a speed suitable to the road and limits (e.g. no going 50 on a 100 single lane road);
Maintaining speed;
If the road ahead is blocked, brake rather than honk (even if you have right of way, physics tend to ignore that);
The yellow box is not a "no fly area", it MUST be entered to turn right;
How to stay awake at red lights;

pcardin

Deleted User wrote: »

Let's do it - it should cover:

Roundabouts
Motorways/Dual carriageways
How/when to use your lights (including indicators)
Moving the fcuk over when turning right

Anything I'm forgetting?

Yeh, never gonna happen.

Amber on trafic lights means prepare to stop and not "go faster". Red means stop and not "first ten cars go faster and rest stop".

It should happen but Irelands transport system is 20 years behind other countries, there would be alot of old people stuck .

Chimaera

I think as a first measure, having to resit the theory test when renewing would be useful as a means of bringing people up to speed on changes in the rules of the road. Quite often, the deficiency in driving isn't so much with basic car control skills as lack of awareness/understanding of the driving environment. Having to periodically study the rules of the road should help close this gap.

Ideally we should have on-the-road retesting as part of the renewal process, but this is more difficult to implement. Like others have said, no matter how good an idea this is from a safety point of view, the peanut gallery are going to shout and moan about it being a money-making racket for the government.

Many professions where safety and competence in performing the duties of that profession are critical implement CPD programmes where continuous training and upskilling are mandatory. Driving should fall under the same rules.

goz83

vitani wrote: »

If it would teach people how to drive properly at roundabouts, I'd be all for it.

Will it teach those eijets that traffic lights at round-abouts is a bad idea?

Irish Steve

Might work.

Would be a lot more effective if people that were involved in accidents and had not taken a test previously were required to do a retest within a (relatively short) time scale

People involved in an accident who had taken a test have to retest before their next renewal, including theory test if not taken, or taken more than 10 years ago

People with more than X penalty points have to do a retest, with theory if applicable.

There are some issues however. The "standard" required for a new driver is inappropriate for an experienced driver, both good and bad drivers will have developed techniques that are not accepted in new drivers, so some means of assessing if the driving is safe that does not enforce "learner level" standards would have to be found.

Why restrict it to B licences?

Some of the "professional" drivers would benefit from being reminded of some of the rules, both Taxi drivers and HGV drivers are not innocent in that regard, maybe the requirement should be that if the driver is earning a living from driving, they have to retest every 10 years.

I could post a vehicle registration number on here of a Taxi driver that very nearly caused a 4 vehicle pile up on Saturday by joining the M7, accelerating hard to about 130Kph in Lane 1, then pulling out into Lane 2 in front of and very close to a Yaris doing 120 in Lane 2 to pass a Transit Van, which caused the Yaris to brake hard, which was inappropriate, as there was other traffic in lane 2 behind it. The taxi then took off at about 140 Kph to the next exit.

HGV's that sit in Lane 2 for many kilometers to get past another HGV that's 2 Kph slower than he is.

Tailgaters.

Lots of people that don't have a clue how to drive with filter arrow lights on traffic lights.


There's plenty of bad habits out there that could be dealt with, but the enforcement is not there, they spend too much time worrying about inappropriate speed limits on roads that don't need them, rather than dealing with things like red hoppers, and the like.

It will probably happen at some stage, and the people that are most in need of being picked up by such a system will invariably be the ones that are not caught out. It's the Irish Way don't ye know!!

Chimaera

I don't recall whether it's already the case or not, but anyone who has had their licence suspended due to a conviction for a road traffic offence should have to start again with the theory and practical driver test. If you've gotten to the point of having your licence taken away, you're clearly incompetent and need to retrain from the start.

IMO, the whole point of doing something like this is to enforce the learner/new driver standard among more experienced drivers. For one thing, standards change over time, so the standard that was applied when a driver originally sat their test is probably lower than what's applied now. Also, bad habits slip in, so it helps to correct those.

Professional drivers are now subject to CPC rules, though I'm not 100 % sure if it covers PSV drivers.

Rather than post that registration number, how about phoning Traffic Watch and reporting it?

Gosub

Of course it's always the older driver that's dangerous... but wait... the statistics show that young males are the most often involved in serious accidents. It would seem the old adage still holds true: the young know everything and are never, ever, wrong.


Most of the dangerous driving I see on the road is by young men and women, often with young children in the car. The cars cruising in lane 2 of 3 are normally the younger driver. I have to move from lane 1 to lane 3 to pass and then return to lane 1. A lot of these drivers have passed their test in the last 5 years. The trouble is, they know they should be in lane 1, but couldn't be arsed to do it right. This isn't restricted to Ireland by the way.


Over my driving life I have passed several tests and have the ink on my licence to prove it. All were passed first time. I didn't get a 'lucky bag' licence. I have never had an accident, nor, to the best of my knowledge, have I caused one. I earned my first full licence 41 years ago.

The truth is that very few people take pride in their driving. It's all too sloppy. This isn't an age issue, it's a standards issue. We're all responsible for the standard of our driving. A seriously big percentage of our drivers don't seem to care how they drive, even if they do know how to do it right.

gozunda

The nice thing of course would be that with the advent of digital driving simulators - there would be no real need to do an actual retest on the road with results being graded consistently and without bias of a "human" tester who might just be having a bad day, good day or just is an utter B*ll*x

And the nice thing about this is that genuinely dangerous drivers would at least be removed from a real road environment whilst doing a retest.

I can see the downsides of this type of testing as well but as a retest environment it could be a very good environment to undertake such testing

Cee-Jay-Cee

It's been mentioned before but will never ever happen because you can be sure that what ever minister introduces it will be the most hated politician ever as it will effect everyone...besides they can barely keep up with the current numbers of those waiting to do their driving test let alone retesting the approximate million current licence holders...not gonna happen.

OldmanMondeo

Popoutman wrote: »

It'll also catch those that got their licenses for free without passing a test back in the late 70's or early 80's..

You can go back a decade there. My Dad got his licence that way, before I was born, so sometime in the 60's.

As for re-testing, great idea. To put the positive spin on it, it will improve driving standards in the country, therefore in the long term lowering insurance costs.

Spook_ie

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

Indeed, it should happen, at a minimum everyone should have to resit at least some form of test if not the whole test again when renewing their licence every ten years, every five years would be better. It would maintain a much higher standard of driving and have people learn how to drive rather than learn how to pass a test and then drive however they want when they pass it.

Well that's double dutch, you want people to sit tests or you want people to drive? which is it

Cookie_Monster

bmstuff wrote: »

If the initial training was much better including motorway driving there would not be any need for a retest.

This comes up every time re learning to drive. What exactly is so special about a motorway that you need to learn?

Speed limits? Nope, plenty of DCs have 100 and 120 limits
Exits? Nope, plenty of DCs have similar of better quality exits
Overtaking, traffic? Nope, same as any other road...

I really don't get the constant whinging about not being trained to drive on a motorway, there isn't any because there is no need.