Driver,80, seen veering across road before killing cyclist

alansmurphy wrote:

"This could have been prevented" Maybe, maybe not. Ban everyone with a medical condition? People driving with a common cold can sneeze. How many people were driving on Oct roads last week, drove after an Xmas party the night before, drive home from the gym?

The current rules about driving with certain conditions are probably stringent enough. However, without re-tests it's left completely up to the drivers themselves to judge when their driving ability if getting worse. A re-test every 10 years for every driver would catch a lot of people with failing eyesight or slowed reactions and would also provide a handy way of introducing new road laws/recommendations that may not have been emphasised 50 years ago.

What I don't get is the understanding that once people have got a driving license, it's then left up to them to decide whether they are fit to drive or not. However, when incidents happen, they then get away with it and play the sympathy card. You can't have it both ways - drivers should be 100% held responsible for what they do and none of that SMIDSY rubbish.

hawkinspeter wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

"This could have been prevented" Maybe, maybe not. Ban everyone with a medical condition? People driving with a common cold can sneeze. How many people were driving on Oct roads last week, drove after an Xmas party the night before, drive home from the gym?

The current rules about driving with certain conditions are probably stringent enough. However, without re-tests it's left completely up to the drivers themselves to judge when their driving ability if getting worse. A re-test every 10 years for every driver would catch a lot of people with failing eyesight or slowed reactions and would also provide a handy way of introducing new road laws/recommendations that may not have been emphasised 50 years ago.

What I don't get is the understanding that once people have got a driving license, it's then left up to them to decide whether they are fit to drive or not. However, when incidents happen, they then get away with it and play the sympathy card. You can't have it both ways - drivers should be 100% held responsible for what they do and none of that SMIDSY rubbish.

No, they are not, they are woefully inadequate and subjective. For the whole of this year I have been driving whilst on significant doses of medicine. Had the medicine not been prescribed then I would have failed a driving and drugs test; however as they are prescribed drugs I could drive so long as I considered myself capable. It was only after stopping the medication that I realised how wrong my perceptions were.

Multiply this across our elderly drivers and it's incredible we don't have more fatalities.

Grahamd wrote:

 ...... Multiply this across our elderly drivers and it's incredible we don't have more fatalities.  ...... 

It would be comforting, but impractical, to expect all problems to be solved at a stroke and this certainly isn't going to happen.  Budgets, political fall-out and other factors will necessarily ration the amount of effort applied to any area of public safety.  So it makes sense to concentrate first on the greatest dangers, and whilst watching videos of older drivers demolishing petrol pumps is entertaining, it doesn't highlight the most urgent need.

Young men are the drivers who cause the greatest danger on our roads.  As an age group they have more than twice the expected number of collisions and, because of the high speeds involved, those incidents are more often of the most serious type.  It seems ludicrous but the single greatest cause of death in these youngsters is the road traffic 'accident'; more than all diseases, sports injuries and other causes.

If you are unconvinced, the figures can be easily found online and for confirmation ask an insurance company why my (claim-free) grandson's annual premium is almost £2000 and mine is £120.

userfriendly wrote:

This could have been prevented.

How? There are many, way too many, people driving that aren't fit to drive.

A huge part of that are people who aren't fit to drive anymore due to age. I really don't give the tiniest of effs how "still very fit" you think your 80-yo gran is. Pensioners don't need cars. No. They don't.

Very few people really actually *need* a car. For the vast majority it's a convenience, nothing more.

 

If you live in a city that may be true, but here in rural Scotland, my 80 year old and 68 year old  neighbours (both still working farmers) might give you an argument. I'll happily agree that no one should need a car, but that's back to serious investment in proper public transport.

PRSboy wrote:

The problem with unforeseen medical episodes is that they are just that.  I don't get why a mandatory driving re-test at 75 would have helped in this tragic case.

Or does everyone here put themselves in for an annual Medical, and eye test, just in case of any underlying medical issue?

If someone's driving/perception performance is dramatically worse during a re-test, then it would make sense for them to have a check-up to see if there's any underlying medical cause. It's similar to the eye pressure test performed during eye exams - it can often be the first sign of diabetes that is recognised (e.g. my brother discovered he had type 1 following an eye test).

PRSboy wrote:

The problem with unforeseen medical episodes is that they are just that.  I don't get why a mandatory driving re-test at 75 would have helped in this tragic case.

Or does everyone here put themselves in for an annual Medical, and eye test, just in case of any underlying medical issue?

Well, purely in relation to this case, there were pre-existing medical conditions for which she was taking medication. Maybe everything was fine and well controlled, but maybe a medical exam might have shown an issue. 

However, I think you are conflating medical testing and driving re-tests. Are you convinced that a driving re-test wouldn't have helped? Again, maybe not in this case, but there are plenty of other examples, even in these comments let alone across the country, of families knowing that an elderly relative is possibly/probably unsafe to drive, but feel unable to or unsure what to do  about it.

The impression I get is that often, it has to be quite bad before family members even raise it with the individual concerned. If the individual is unwilling to accept there's a problem, I suspect things often have to get downright dangerous before family members report them to authorities.

Would it not be better to just have re-tests in place to check? The need to be tested by itself may prompt some people to face up to issues. 

But then I've always felt that everyone, regardless of age or medical condition, should have driving re-tests every 5 or 10 years. That would clearly cost money, and if we are more agressive in taking licenses away, whether due to infirmity, convictions etc... then we would also need to invest more in public transport. So it's not going to happen. 

So, and sorry to pick on your comment, but to me it's just another example of a wider society that sees driving as a right rather than a privilige, where huge numbers of road deaths are acceptable, and with no willingness to take the steps that would make a difference.  

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Driving licences need to expire when the driver gets to 75. If they want to carry on driving pas that - the answer is easy - pass your test.  That would be that. No waiting for doctors to do the right thing, no waiting for Uncle Monty to maybe get his cataracts looked at because he doesn't want to bother anyone but in the meantime he'll just keep driving.

Knowing people who suddenly had sight change problems at various ages, if you have licence regardless of age you should be mandated to have a bi-annual eye test or the licence expires. The police could have fun randomly stopping people, checking a database,  impounding cars and raising more revenue.

Then at age 70 not 75 you should have  a retest as age 70 is when driving licences expire.

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

I like the way the court had to be told that the cyclist was 'experienced', just, you know, so somehow someone swerving onto the other side of the road REALLY, REALLY wasn't the cyclist's fault. Surprised hi-viz didn't get mentioned.

It makes it clear it wasn't the cyclist's fault in any shape or form.   One reason to wear a bright top/high viz/reflective depending on the light conditions and a helmet is to ensure if a driver like this hits you, in no shape or form can an insurer argue any part of it was your fault to decrease the amount of compensation you or your family gets from them.  

SteveAustin wrote:

Locking people up wont solve this kind of "crime". 

Just a tragic accident that, possibly, shouldn't have happened.

Definitely preventable - mandatory retesting every 10 years for drivers might have saved the cyclist's life and saved the driver having to regret the incident.

srchar wrote:

A thorough, regular re-test and full medical examination would be great, but is never going to happen. I think cycling advocacy groups should campaign for annual eyesight checks instead.  Quicker, cheaper - and it would achieve much the same ends in getting unfit elderly drivers off the roads as a full medical.

My mum used to work in a Post Office back in the day when you had to visit one to tax your car.  It was a regular occurrence for elderly customers to pop in for road tax, need help filling in the form because their eyesight was so bad they couldn't read it, then merrily hop into their car to drive home.  Most of them had probably never hurt a fly in their lives either, but were certainly a danger to other road users given the shocking state of their vision.

You are clearly unaware if you are long sighted, which most older people are, then you shouldn't be a danger driving even if you cannot read a form. There as myself and my mates who are short sighted can complete a form but would probably injure ourselves entering the post office let alone driving without specs/contacts because we can't see things in the distance, and in some cases that distance is about a metre.

Anyway opticians also regularly bring up bi-annual eye tests should be mandatory but they are ignored probably because most of those who should hand their licences back in are in the age group where eye tests are free and the government rather not not foot the bill. The thing is GPs don't want to and refuse to do the job as they have to deal with enough social problems related to health anyway, and as they aren't specialists in anything so you could in theory take a GP to court/raise a complaint some other way if they decided you were unfit to drive.

Tommytrucker wrote:

It never ceases to amaze me how you can pass a test at 17 and then never be required to show any ongoing training to show you have been continuing to follow the rules of the road for the past 30 - 40 years. I'd be extremely happy to see mandatory retesting every 5 years from the point of passing your test, would be a money spinner for the government but with the potential onslaught of driverless cars, it probably won't happen.

Agreed, I have taken a couple of driving tests since passing my first one in a car and undertaken other driver training and it refreshes your mind as to the correct standard of driving. It would also refresh and update you with new rules and standards, I had a close pass by a driver the other day, when I spoke to him he said I should have been 30 cm's from the edge of the road, I reckon the vast amount of drivers know what the current advice is about cycling on the roads i.e. Primary and Seconday positions.

ashliejay wrote:

if you can't get parliment to pass legislation to have drivers retested, you could always try to get insurance companies to price people out of driving, no claims bonus or not, pass a certain age and your insurance goes to that of new and young drivers, due to the risk of massivily increased driver error.

you can't legislate stuff like this based on age; what matters is their ability to drive to a standard. If there is to be re-testing then it should apply to everyone equally, whatever their age.

If you want to do it based on statistics then be careful if you're a man.

ConcordeCX wrote:

ashliejay wrote:

if you can't get parliment to pass legislation to have drivers retested, you could always try to get insurance companies to price people out of driving, no claims bonus or not, pass a certain age and your insurance goes to that of new and young drivers, due to the risk of massivily increased driver error.

you can't legislate stuff like this based on age; what matters is their ability to drive to a standard. If there is to be re-testing then it should apply to everyone equally, whatever their age.

If you want to do it based on statistics then be careful if you're a man.

 

True that. Retest every 5 years (a cut down refresher type though) and a medical type form from your GP would undoubtedly highlight bad drivers and potentially save lives.

ConcordeCX wrote:

ashliejay wrote:

if you can't get parliment to pass legislation to have drivers retested, you could always try to get insurance companies to price people out of driving, no claims bonus or not, pass a certain age and your insurance goes to that of new and young drivers, due to the risk of massivily increased driver error.

you can't legislate stuff like this based on age; what matters is their ability to drive to a standard. If there is to be re-testing then it should apply to everyone equally, whatever their age.

If you want to do it based on statistics then be careful if you're a man.

 

Though either's fine with me.  Retest everyone regularly, or introduce more frequent retesting based on the statistics.  I'm not hugely fussed which, but it does seem quite clear that health problems that affect driving ability, including 'invisible' problems, increase strongly with age and people are very reluctant to own up to them when they've become driving-dependent. 

And if that means more testing for young men, I'd be OK with that as well.  (Or just more rigorous testing in the first place, because I'm not sure the issue there is _deterioration_ of ability so much as just a consistent crappy attitude)

  We did, after all, accept differential insurance rates based on gender for a very long time.

John Smith wrote:

I’m always ready to criticise poor driving and poor sentencing, but honestly, this seems reasonable. She had a medical episode, out of the blue, and unfortunately someone died. It wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t entirely foreseeable and she has done the right thing showing remorse and giving up her driving licence. Whilst it is tragic that someone died this was not malicious and without the benefit of hindsight it’s difficult to see what could have been done to prevent it.

If you believe there were no other episodes prior to this one while not driving.

Maybe, maybe not.

Sniffer wrote:

John Smith wrote:

I’m always ready to criticise poor driving and poor sentencing, but honestly, this seems reasonable. She had a medical episode, out of the blue, and unfortunately someone died. It wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t entirely foreseeable and she has done the right thing showing remorse and giving up her driving licence. Whilst it is tragic that someone died this was not malicious and without the benefit of hindsight it’s difficult to see what could have been done to prevent it.

If you believe there were no other episodes prior to this one while not driving. Maybe, maybe not.

Are you suggesting that she didn't have a first episode?

don simon wrote:

Sniffer wrote:

John Smith wrote:

I’m always ready to criticise poor driving and poor sentencing, but honestly, this seems reasonable. She had a medical episode, out of the blue, and unfortunately someone died. It wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t entirely foreseeable and she has done the right thing showing remorse and giving up her driving licence. Whilst it is tragic that someone died this was not malicious and without the benefit of hindsight it’s difficult to see what could have been done to prevent it.

If you believe there were no other episodes prior to this one while not driving. Maybe, maybe not.

Are you suggesting that she didn't have a first episode?

I have no idea, but I was surprised that the assertion by her lawyer was taken on so easily by other commenters. People often don't accept signals when they don't like the consequences.

Maybe I just don't believe everything I read.