It was standing in Bradford city centre that I was inspired to come up with an idea that would sort out the UK's problems with traffic congestion and also kill a few other birds at the same time. My suggestion will also cut down on road traffic accidents and help lower pollution, so I wonder why anybody has not thought of this before? It seems obvious to me. It was in the city centre that I was minding my own business standing by a bus stop, when some moron in a boy racer car slowed down (which I found rather unusual). I looked up and hurtling towards me was a water bomb! Fortunately I managed to move my leg backwards and the water bomb did not hit my leg but bounced onto the wall behind me and exploded. Had I had something a little weighty on my person, I would have been tempted to demonstrate what a good aim I am, and leave them with a nice garage bill for their troubles, but I did not. And I do not advocate this behaviour (although the thought is comforting).
Some months ago some idiots of about the same age in a different boy racer car threw an egg at me - this one DID hit me and, as you can imagine, I was a little annoyed. After all, on both these occasions I had been minding my own business getting on with my life. I could have been anybody and I am sure on both occasions there were other 'victims' of their juvenile behaviour. Another time a boy racer nearly ran me over whilst speeding.
It is usually 'boys' between 17 and 21 who do this sort of thing. I have NEVER been subjected to this by drivers in their 30s and 40s. I am sure this is the same for most people.
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| Rik: "The minimum age somebody can have a driving licence should be put up to 21." |
There has been a lot said about crackdowns on road safety. There has also been a lot said about traffic congestion and as a result they have introduced the Congestion Charge in London which has only succeeded in one thing - punishing the businesses and workers in the areas where these charges are in operation.
We have had even more talk about pollution from cars. The Liberal Democrats had promised to tackle this by 'charging people carriers off of the road' if they had been elected. I do not think this is very sensible as large people carriers can help reduce traffic congestion by picking people up to go to work, thus also reducing pollution.
Under the Labour government drivers feel they are being 'taken for a ride' with more and more speed cameras in operation to fine people who break the speed limit by a couple of miles per hour.
My suggestion is simple - the minimum age somebody can have a driving licence should be put up to 21. It would allow the police to concentrate on catching criminals rather than putting most of their resources into making money from drivers, cut down road congestion, lower pollution and make the roads a lot safer. If you don't believe me, let the statistics do the talking.
An insurance company on the internet says: "The worst age group statistically are for the male teenagers. This group not only have a higher claims frequency but also have more expensive claims. Average loss ratios for insurers writing this business is 120%, which makes them a highly unattractive risk prospect." The claims being more expensive would suggest that the accidents are a lot worse than the average road accident. Since EVERY car must be insured, maybe I can also cure a headache for insurance companies and this could even lead to lower cost insurance? Ok maybe not get you lower costs, after all insurance companies will always want to make as much money as they can.
Young drivers are a menace to all on the road and it is their 'it wont happen to me' attitude that leads to so many deaths and injuries on the road. You have to ask, if somebody is so immature that they go around letting people throw objects at people from their cars, are they mature enough to be behind the wheel of something that can be used as a deadly weapon? Certainly not!
There are more statistics about the cars young drivers buy and the maintenance of them. Young drivers are likely to carry more passengers, thus leading to the death or injury of more people at the same time.
In the Thames Valley area alone a BBC report says that "eight people aged 17-25 are currently killed or seriously injured on the roads each week. In the Wokingham district last year, 32% of accidents causing injury involved drivers in the 17-25 age group."
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| One in three male drivers will write off their car in their first year of driving says Rik. |
There are more damning statistics. One in three male drivers will write off their car in their first year of driving; for women this is half as likely to happen. Even more concerning is that one in four (a quarter!) of the convictions for death by dangerous driving are caused by drivers under 20-years-old. One quarter of drivers who have accidents under the age of 21 have done so due to losing control of their car. The reasons things like this happen is due to the speed a driver is travelling at, or simply not paying due care and attention. In aviation this would be known as 'pilot error'.
And what about the chances of victims of these drivers getting compensation from these people by claiming off their insurance? One website says: "More than 130,000 under-25-year-olds were convicted of driving without insurance in 2001, more than half of total convictions".
Some online car insurers have joined in by calling on MPs to help bring about a ban on the sale of car magazines that these companies believe are irresponsible to people under the age of 21. I say we need to go further than this, and stop people under the age of 21 being allowed to drive altogether. One company says that in the UK, drivers under the age of 21 are responsible for 20% of all motoring offences, with 88% being committed by young men. It goes on to say that young males are also responsible for a disproportionately high percentage of insurance claims and accidents and they also have the most serious and costly accidents on average.
So, rather than putting up more speed cameras, rather than introducing more congestion charges, rather than wasting more police resources trying to catch out speeding drivers, rather than more speed bumps, rather than pricing people carriers off of the road, the political parties need to have the convictions of their claims to care about road safety and do something constructive in sorting the problems out. Push up the minimum age for drivers to 21 and we will see a dramatic improvement to our problems on the roads.
Surely if they are concerned about getting into power this will help them.
As for the political parties concerns about alienating young voters, I wouldn't really worry because the same age group are more interested in voting contestants out of Big Brother rather than caring about who is in control of the country. Maybe we should consider raising the age of voting to 21 while we are at it too!
Rik Copley
This article is user-generated content (i.e. external contribution) expressing a personal opinion, not the views of the BBC West Yorkshire website.
