Driving Miss Daisy

I have but one contribution to make to the debate about driving the economy forward with appropriate fiscal stimulation:

Everyone who drives should have to retake their driving test every 5 years

I took a StreetCar out a couple of weeks ago – the first time I’ve driven a car in the UK for about a year – and was shocked about how terrible most people are. Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre seems to have disappeared from the lexicon. And let’s not even talk about how people drive on motorways.

So my proposal is simple. Everyone retakes their test, every 5 years.

The benefits would be simple, directly quantifiable and good for everyone

– Fewer accidents on the road

– Lower healthcare costs because of fewer accidents

– Reduced disruption to traffic because of accidents and so improved productivity

– Higher employment for driving instructors and so a new career opportunity for many

– Lower insurance premiums because of fewer accidents

Plainly this isn’t a simple thing to introduce – we’d need, first, to build capacity in the driving school and test centres and come up with a way to prioritise those who needed to take a test first. Those with a recent conviction for driving offences (but no loss of licence) could perhaps go first along with those who last took a test when the speed limit was still 2mph … or those who last took a test 20 years ago or more.