Two more teenage road deaths

[Fisherman Mike]

Three teenagers have died after a head-on traffic collision.

South Yorkshire Police said the incident happened on Monday night just outside Mexborough when the driver of a silver Vauxhall Corsa crashed into a VW Golf.

 

More unnecessary deaths of teenage drivers following on from two a couple of days ago...

 

When is the system going to be changed to prevent this from happening with such alarming frequency ??

 

Surely something can and must be done.....?

[BlaserF3]

Not letting them carry passengers until they are 21 might be a start.

[Scully]

I don't know what the circumstances were....but I know plenty of young lads round here with no experience yet high powered cars.Not a good mix really,without exception,everyone of them has written off their first car,but so far no fatalities amongst the ones I know,but plenty county wide.Couple of lads in the front,couple of lasses in the back,the lads feel they have to impress....it's gonna end in tears.

[pegleg31]

not letting them carry passengers until 21 after dark is a start but then if they do that i think they should make people re-sit their test again at 65,70 and then every year after that as i personally think elderly drivers are more dangerous

[roadkill]

what can be done? My best friend died many years ago in a car to fast for him .

 

Up the age to 20

limit the engine to a 1.0 until they are 22

carry no other people until there 22 also

 

not sure what can be done

[dunganick]

Not much can be done, as long as nobody is drunk/high then its just lack of judgement. You cant really teach judgement, well you can try, but for a large amount of people it comes with experience (which just really means either witnessed mistakes or made them but got away with it)

 

Not carrying passengers until a certain level of experience is an interesting one (my parents stopped me for a year after my test....). Certain passengers can be a nightmare, and certainly lads show off to each other, however unless the police want to be pulling over everyone that looks under a certain age/experience then its not really an enforceable law, just another one that will get tagged on when an accident happens. You could introduce a scheme such as using the green L's for 2 years after passing to designate a new driver, however its only the sensible ones that would do this, and as ever the ones that wish to flaunt the law will ignore it, carry passengers and not get checked until an accident as its a waste of police time.

 

Unfortunately accidents happen, tackling drink/drugged/uninsured driving must be a much easier way to save lives on the road and in reality thats probably the area best concentrated on.

 

As for limited performance, i'm not sure that matters, lots of my friends crashed 106's or small engined cars not capable of pulling the skin off a rice pudding, its how you drive. Mandatory hours on a skid pan training in driving a non ABS car should be included as part of the learning process as some Scandinavian countries do. If i was offered an afternoon on a skid pan now and some driver training i would take it like that, would be great fun and educational. In my opinion things like controlling oversteer/understeer only come from experience. Theory read in a book wont kick in when the back end steps out.

[miroku4399]

A lot of it will be down to the young drivers not having enough experience, showing off and all sorts. There needs to be some form of restriction for young drivers

 

I have a teenage daughter and it wont be long till she starts to have boyfriends with cars. It will be a nightmare and am not looking forward to it.

 

It is such a shame when a young life is cut short due to a moments madness

 

Shane

[Bleeh]

Oh Jee.

 

What a bunch of Hypercritical bunch of grumpy old **** you are.

 

Every other day it's a topic about 'Living in a PC world where they are trying to restrict everything' and 'back in my day, we used to drink turpentine while riding on motorbikes without helmets and play in the woods with BB guns, and it never did us any harm'.

 

But this, it's all about how you want everyone to be safer, and how the stupid government should impose MORE restrictions and laws!

 

 

Further more! let's have a looksie at this.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualties_Great_Britain

 

 

Yep, every year the amount of Killed, Serious injury, Slight injury and total injury, has gone down, with 2009 having over 1,200 less Deaths than in 1999 (3,423) (And, as I'm sure another topic soon to come up with you all in arms agreeing, Population has gone up).

 

 

So yes, You do get a bunch of stupid 'young'un's razing around town in a Metro, but it's no worse than it has ever been, and I'm sure it's something you all did when you where 20 years younger anyhow.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Bleeh

[J@mes]

Agree with the above! Those who want to **** about are going to, whether there is a law against it or not.

 

Further education is a good idea, and further training. But further restriction is bad for those who toe the line and of no consequence to those who don't.

[Hornet 6]

Why should anything be done ?

You can drive at age 18, at that age you are considered an adult, able to make decisions for yourself.

People make bad decisions everyday, but more make good ones, why should they be protected by legislation ?

Would be a lot better if the no licence and insurance type drivers were caught and prosecuted effectively, as for drink drivers, well

how about zero tolerance, you lose your licence for life, get caught driving on a ban, you serve a minimum of 5 years 1st offence.

 

 

Neil.

[Imperfection]

Very little can be done with all honesty.Yes,you could restrict the horse power or engine size of a newly qualified driver for a set amount of time,bit is that really going to prevent them from hitting a wall or something equally as hard? Even a 1.0 Micra is capable of reaching speeds which would kill all occupants so really the only thing you could do is restrict the amount of passengers so the casualities are lower when things do go wrong.

 

Its a sad fact of life that speed,youth and inexperience only ends one way.

[vole]

Of course kids will always **** about in cars but like drink drivers they take innocent people with them too .The people in their vehicle might not be aware that the person responsible for their life is 18 years old with the mental age of a 10 year old . Nor will the bystanders they wipe out . Driving drunk is illegal so why not driving stupid ?

[mossy835]

well you can all ways ban cars,they ban guns because they kill.

[bullet1747]

daughter is 18 and drives, son is just 17 and learning in the new year not all kids are ****** there is a lot of oldies that are as well , limit all cars for all new drivers to 40 mph and ban new drivers from carrying passengers till they have 2years experience

[zeb]

maybe they could do something were you are put on open run way or something and have a driving instructor stick them into a slide, and so on to teach them how to drive fast (give the some experience of driving at 70) in a semi safe environment, and to do it as a certificate saying this person has completed something or other , rather than an a actual test something which u cant fail as such unless u really shouldnt be on the roads, so the kid actually drives like he/she would normally do rather than pazy footing around doing things no one dose apart from on there test weather it would hlep save lives is anther matter

 

currently i dont have the money to learn to drive so i go around with my mates, if the government were to ban taking passengers id have to learn to drive or sit at home like a lonner lol (i live in the sticks) so all it would produce is instead of 4 boys in a car ud probably get 4 cars racing each other instead,tbh i tihnk the news gets hold of they things alot more than they used to , i mean if front lined every crash involving 4 fatality's there would be a lot more than just 17 - 22 yearolds me thinks

[Jim Sarakun]

well you can all ways ban cars,they ban guns because they kill.

 

That would be fantastic. I wish they would, or we ran out of petrol..

[Imperfection]

That would be fantastic. I wish they would, or we ran out of petrol..

 

 

Wouldnt be too bad for Fen folk as they could revert back to riding donkeys.

[Boromir]

I think insurance for young people 25< anything above 1.2 engine should pay extremely high, putting off youngens getting cars they can't handle. While the ones getting the right cars suitable with certain conditions applied should get cheap insurance.

 

And come down hard on those that drive without insurance

[BlaserF3]

A workmate had some insurance quotes for his 18 year old son to insure a 10 year old Peugeot 1.2.litre.

 

£3000 was the cheapest for third party only. When I passed my test in 1967 my insurance was the equivalent of the weekly wage.

[poontang]

It's impossible to legislate for idiots, and there'll always be a certain amount of irresponsible young drivers on the road.

However I don't think all young drivers should be labelled as such.

I think the insurance companies could play a big part and put something back into driving, instead of just taking.

I think new drivers should be offered extra courses and education, which when successfully completed would result in much lower insurance premiums.

Maybe motorway driving, night-time driving, driving in the wet etc. with each course backed up with extra theory so the student actually understands what he/she is doing and the consequences should they get it wrong. Completion of each course would mean a decent reduction in premiums.

[Bleeh]

A workmate had some insurance quotes for his 18 year old son to insure a 10 year old Peugeot 1.2.litre.

 

£3000 was the cheapest for third party only. When I passed my test in 1967 my insurance was the equivalent of the weekly wage.

 

 

Something strange I noticed, (For some reason) is that Third Party Fire and Theft for anyone under 21, is CHEAPER than Third party. Don't believe me? have a quick look on a compare website.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Bleeh

[The Duncan]

Not letting them carry passengers until they are 21 might be a start.

You're probably on the right track there BlaserF3.

Statistically, for every teenager you add to a car being driven by a teenager (if memory serves correctly, male teens) you double the risk of the car being in an accident.

Reason?

1. Testosterone and very little self control

2. Complete lack of fear, until it's too late. Teenage lads brains don't fully develop the 'fear' processing area until 19-23 years of age. Girls tend to develop in this why a lot earlier, hence there are fewer female teens involved in RTA's (own fault).

 

What can we do about this?

Not a lot. It is the nature of teen male drivers unfortunately, so no matter how much training etc you enforce, it doesn't change the nature of the nut that holds the wheel.

 

 

Relatively, few accidents happen involving teens, considering the number of teens on the road

and we are never going to have a zero-accidents year.

 

So unless you stop teens driving full stop, rta's involving teens are inevitable. Then of course the next target would be to top people in their 20's driving.....

 

 

 

edit - damn typo's!

Edited December 28, 2010 by The Duncan

[The Duncan]

I think insurance for young people 25< anything above 1.2 engine should pay extremely high, putting off youngens getting cars they can't handle. While the ones getting the right cars suitable with certain conditions applied should get cheap insurance.

 

And come down hard on those that drive without insurance

Why not put a 2 year power limit for new drivers (under 21) as they do with motorbikes?

It seems unfair to impose the 'porridge' period on bikers but not on new drivers.

 

Duncan

[Boromir]

Yes that's a good idea as well duncan.

[Mr Potter]

not letting them carry passengers until 21 after dark is a start but then if they do that i think they should make people re-sit their test again at 65,70 and then every year after that as i personally think elderly drivers are more dangerous

 

You might think that pegleg31 but the insurance companies obviously know differently as the insurance costs are significantly lower for older drivers and thats one lot of statistics that you can't argue with!

 

Mr Potter (aged 59³/₄)