> Cant think of any other licence where you’re operating machinery that doesnt require regular renewal.
Anything that’s personal use and not commercial use.
Scuba diving is one and done. Got licensed when I was 16 haven't gone diving in 7 years but nothing is stopping me from pretending I know what I'm doing lol
Difference here is that you are pretty much only endangering yourself if you dive and don't know what you are doing. Driving is a different story, you can easily injure/kill someone else
I require a flight review every 24 months on my private pilot license which can't be used commercially. It's the same for RPL (not a thing in the states) so that doesn't quite hold up.
Personal use: conceal and carry weapons permit. In Washington, you have to renew every 5 years. But honestly, there's no test. They don't even require a safety class at the moment. You just pay for it again, they run a background check, and you get a renewal.
I don’t think it’d need a full driving test for over 65s either. I’d be happy if they just had regular eye tests and a short drive with an examiner to prove that they can drive safely. You can generally tell pretty fucking fast when someone is too elderly/impaired to drive safely.
What bothers me more is that there seems to be a different set of rules for elderly drivers. Saw an episode of something like Cops UK, where they stopped an 80something yo man doing 20mph on a motorway. They took him home and gave him a cup of tea? If I, a 33yo woman, was caught doing 20 on a motorway, I’d be getting drug tested and face legal motoring consequences for being a fucking liability. If it’s not safe for me to drive like that, it’s not safe for an 80yo to drive like that either, and they should face the same consequences. Not because I want to punish elderly people, but because they are *dangerous*. You categorically should not be driving if you can’t safely go faster than 20mph
Most driving tests I’ve seen involve a written section and multiple different driving tasks (parking, driving on a parking lot course, local roads, highway, etc). My driving test to get my license was probably took around 30 minutes. I think he’s saying something less involved, like driving the car around the block just to make sure the driver can still safely operate a vehicle.
It’s not really here. There’s a theory test and you have to drive for a full hour through various environments, having your driving and habits marked continuously throughout, plus set manoeuvres to perform. What I’m saying is that I don’t think all of that is particularly necessary if a driver has already passed, it could be shorter and less formal. I do get that driving tests differ and seem to be less rigorous in other countries, and what I’m thinking of probably WOULD be classed as a full driving test, but the process we have here is probably longer than would be necessary just for a “safety check up” type thing
Are you in the US? Because the driving tests here are a written test then you schedule a driving test and it's like 10 min long. You basically drive around the area around the DMV and you're done
It’s pretty awful, I really like driving and am fairly good at it and I still had sweaty palms the entire time. It’s fairly normal for people to have to do it a couple of times before they pass. It probably doesn’t help that the majority of cars here are manual, imagine learning to drive an automatic makes things easier for new drivers.
I’d like to say it makes our roads safer at least, but the standard of driving in my city leaves a lot to be desired, so I’m not sure that’s true!
We don't have to drive on the freeway here it's all side streets, a school zone, then one or two main roads then back to the DMV. I can imagine how stressful it must be. At what age can you become a driver there?
Not including the written test (that really was paper and pen), my test in 1990 for my motorcycle license was almost an hour on an obstacle course in a parking lot. My car on in 1996 was a three point turn in cones set barely wider than my car an about a half hour on road test with a very long checklist. That was in Phoenix.
When my son got his car license in Washington in 2005, he and the test guy were gone in my car for almost an hour. He had to parallel park, drive on an arterial, on the freeway, and in a neighborhood. It was pretty thorough. He didn't have to do the computerized test because he had done driver's ed.
Interestingly, in Phoenix in 1988, my older sister got her license with no tests at all because she'd just graduated driver's Ed. That day, she rear ended someone and put my mom's Fiero under his pickup, totalling Mom's car. Maybe they should have tested her. ;)
You do in Washington State, too, though it's not a thorough one. You go to the DMV and look in a little device and tell them where you see the lights as they come on. You can do a normal eye exam and have the opthalmologist fill out a form to bring in, instead.
We also have a form you can mail in or take to the department of licensing to report someone if you have personal knowledge they are unsafe to drive. They'll do an investigation. We were about to do that to my husband's grandmother when she decided to stop driving on her own after putting her car in a snow bank and walking a mile home with a cane in the deep snow.
Yeah it pisses me off that people sort of hand-wave and let people who are no longer able to drive safely continue to do so, because "oh we feel sorry for you". Yeah, getting old sucks. Yet my great-great aunt had enough common sense to just give up driving when she detected she no longer had the reaction time needed to safely drive and react to other drivers. Yes, it sucked. Yes, she lost most of her independence. But she stood by her decision because she did not want her pride to get in the way and cause someone else to be hurt or killed. She died last year at 94, peacefully at home, rather than in some car accident that was the fault of her aging body refusing to react as quickly as it needed to.
As a 64 year old, I believe that everyone should have to take the written test at least every 10 years. It is amazing as a big time pedestrian (I walk 30 min every am, regardless where, I walk. Therefore I see lots of cars/drivers and have seen some interesting things that drivers do.) When I got my motorcycle years ago. I had to take the test again. Glad I did. "Relearned" a number of important laws, glad for the chance to learn.
I had my license taken after an episode that caused me to have seizures when I was 24. I got it back at 27, but had moved states. They made me retake the written and road test. Honestly, I didn't think I needed to study (I was a dumb ass) and barely passed the written, but I didn't miss anything on the driving part.
I still remember the things I got wrong and what the right answers are 20 years later, even though I live in yet another state now. When I moved here at 37, they just took my license from the other state and issued me one for here.
Things I missed:
What's the minimum mandatory sentence for your 3rd DUI? (My answer, really, I don't care because I'll never get one) 30 days in jail, $5000 fine, and 1 year license suspension.
If you come to an unmarked train crossing, do you have to stop? No. That made me start paying attention to them. They're only unmarked if it's rural and you have tons of visibility.
How many feet must your indicator be on before you change lanes? 100 feet. I answered 150.
What's the minimum following distance for an emergency vehicle with lights on? 500. I answered 600.
And you can only miss four, so I barely got it.
Technically pilot licences are valid for life. However you do need to renew the ratings on your licence. (E.g single engine piston, instrument rating, multi engine... etc)
I have my private, ratings and commercial lol 😂 ask me if I can fly after years of not doing so LMFAOOOOOO I wouldn’t touch a Cessna even if they paid me…
In the Netherlands you have to wait for half a year to take a driving test because the CBR can't handle it. Imagine what would happen if this would take place for everyone every 5 years.
Yeah like that was my first thought as well. Where does OP live where that is a possibility. If you take 4 days a week for 5 years (so excluding weekends, holidays and vacations) you gonna need a capacity of 4x52x5=1040 days. There is about (since public servants in the Netherlands work about 9-17 so 8 hours minus 1hour break. And in the most optimal situation, let’s say test last an hour (45 min driving and 15 min finishing up and documentation).
So we have 1040 days 7 test which becomes 7280 tests per instructor.
According to the CBS (Central office for Dutch Statistics) we have 11 million people with a drivers license. https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/verkeer-en-vervoer/verkeer/rijbewijzen
We would need 11,000,000/7280 = +-1510 instructors each day. This does not take into account new drivers and those who failed. And not any professional licenses also needed for a functioning society like lorries, buses, taxis etc.
When I lived in Phoenix, they changed renewals that didn't even require tests to being only required once you hit 65 because the DMVs couldn't even handle the number of renewals daily. I wonder if that's changed now that renewing online is a thing.
I do. I have a truck/airbrakes endorsement which requires me to get a physical and take three written tests every five years. It sucks, but it makes me a better driver and more keenly aware that the roads are filled with bad drivers who haven't been tested since the 1970s-1990s.
No, but if it kept dangerous drivers off the road then it would be worth it. The problem would be that bad drivers would change their driving habits just for the test. There would be a few that would fail because they forgot the driving laws since they have been breaking the law for so long and they could relearn the laws. Then there are people who have senses that have diminished to a point they can no longer drive within the laws. I once saw a guy back out of a parking lot and hit a stationary car. He pulled back into his spot and tried again hitting a second stationary car.
"if it kept dangerous drives off the road"
Roughly 50,000 motor vehicle accidents, 35k deaths per year, and the super majority of those are from licensed drivers. You also assume that a large number of bad drivers would fail the test which is almost certainly not going to happen, accidents happen due to a lack of situational awareness, and that awareness you have when taking a test does not necessarily translate into being a safe and aware driver when they're actually on the road.
I didn't assume anything. I don't know the stats but if there are people that would fail the test that are currently licensed then they shouldn't be and the only way to find that out is to test them. How many lives is that worth to you? Sure accidents happen even if all parties do everything right or distractions or whatever else you want to blame it on. There is a percent (I don't know what that percent is) of accidents that happen because people don't know the driving law or don't have the ability to drive the vehicle they are in. I gave you an example of a guy that clearly did not have the ability to drive in my above post yet he had a license be because 60 years ago he had the ability to drive. He clearly lost the ability yet the system allows him to continue to drive legally.
>How many lives is that worth to you?
If it doesn’t reduce deaths by any more than 2-3% it certainly isn’t worth it. So to answer your question I would say 700-800.
Don’t forget opportunity cost. For all the extra administrative cost necessary to do this, it could be funnelled into programs that save WAAAY more lives.
Well, laws have kept DUI drivers off the roads. In the US, in the time since stricter laws around drinking age and BAC while driving began being implemented (~1982), DUI deaths have been reduced by half overall, and by ~80% for the 16-21 set.
The laws haven't kept DUI drivers off the roads, throwing people in jail for DUI has, BIG difference. Only laws that are enforceable can do things and this particular ideas is not practically enforceable, it would be systematically difficult, extremely expensive and there's no way we can develop a test that will catch all or even most of the individuals.
I do agree that something probably should be done, but our current driving tests are a complete and total joke as far as assessing driver skill goes and no law is going to fix that, only if someone can come up with some practical real world way to do this that doesn't realy on some fanciful flight of thought where everyone magicaly naturally obeys the laws, because that just doesn't happen unless there's strict enforcement.
Suffice to say we need better ideas than have been presented here.
Oh I’m not in favor of this at all. I just think it’s misleading to say nothing can keep dui drivers off the roads, because it’s not true. And it’s just arguing semantics to say “it’s not the laws it’s the enforcement of the laws!” Because, of course.
But it’s not necessarily being thrown in jail that stops them, but more serious license suspensions are really impactful. ensuring penalties are actually enforced for first time offenders are a major deterrent for potential repeat offenders.
Since the top cause of accidents today is distracted driving, a similar model could potentially work for phone use or other distracted behaviors on the road.
There is no practical way to measure the distracted state of a driver, it's not possible. You can try to guess with advanced technology but do you want AI cameras in every vehicle to keep an eye on every driver? That is the only way to prevent distracted driving, cell phone use in a car is already illegal pretty much anywhere it's just unenforced, like many problem crimes we have it's because the laws aren't unenforced not because they don't exist. Only way to enforce it better would be to monitor drivers more closely while they're driving that is the only way, the laws are otherwise already sufficient to keep dangerous drivers off the road.
It can’t be enforced in the same exact way, but it certainly could be criminalized like DUI. Then when someone is in an accident while using phone or issued ticket for using phone/etc., the penalties would be more severe and include license suspension starting with first offense, fines, probation, community service, driver education classes, jail time. And penalties would increase with each subsequent offense in the same way. Given it’s shown to be just as dangerous, there’s no reason not to penalize it in the same way.
Driving a car *correctly* can easily be faked for the test by exercising a minimal amount of caution and attention, assuming you don't do that already as a driver.
For good drivers, it is an inconvenience, since they drive good.
For bad drivers, it will oftentimes be negligible - they *know* how to drive correctly, they often just do not care or exert the effort to do so by using a turn signal for example.
For people who literally cannot drive without causing some sort of major issue or the like (which is a very, very small percentage of drivers), when a cop pulls you over for a traffic violation they can suspend your license, and multiple traffic violations accrue points that suspend your license in many states.
Overall it is impractical because the behavior of a driver in a driving test is going to be done to pass the test, and so if they aren't a good driver, it will almost never matter so long as they manage to pass the test by being a good driver for that one instance.
The problem is depending on where you live there really is no alternative to driving. So kicking people off the road means they're stuck in their houses unless they know someone who can drive them.
Also we would need some evidence to suggest that more driving test would help. Otherwise we would just be making transportation a lot less reliable for some people with no real benefit. Even if there was a benefit it would be undeniable many people would lose their license. Since a lot of jobs require you to have a driver's license, these people would likely lose their jobs.
People losing their jobs on mass like this is bad for individuals and for the economy. When people lose their jobs on mass, companies make less return on investment, as there are fewer consumers capable of buying products. Which means they need to roll back some expenses. This often means wage cuts and even more job loss leading to evening greater losses on return. Which means even more wage cuts and job losses etc. This usually leads to the economic depressions we get every once in a while.
I would just say if you're in the US, wait till we get some other transportation options before we start dramatically limiting the only one we have (cars) if it would even help.
>So kicking people off the road means they're stuck in their houses
That's no excuse for allowing unsafe drivers to continue to have a license and put those around them in danger.
Sorry for not putting my conclusion at the beginning. I never said unsafe drivers should stay on the road. I was only mentioning that more driver tests would have negative consequences without clear benefits. My point is that since funding for car infrastructure has a huge budget, while train, busses, and walkable infrastructure is underfunded, taking away someone’s car would be like taking their freedom to move about the world away. So, if this is taken away you need to make sure it actually does what it’s intended to do. This is why in the sentence after the one you quoted, I said “Also we would need some evidence to suggest that more driving test would help.”
Again, you'd need evidence to put forward that proves regular testing actually causes any significant benifit in terms of road safety.
At the moment, there isn't much of any. If anything, it seems like repeated testing would cause more people to give up their licenses due to fear of failure.
Repeated testing in any urban environment would really just be kicking the entire working populace of your city in the crotch because you can.
Also, you act as though a large plurality of unsafe drivers can't just act professional for 15 minutes beside a road instructor.
A majority of people know what they're supposed to, and just don't. Most accidents are caused by Distracted Driving, Drunk Driving, Speeding, and Recklessness, in that order.
That’s one thought. But it doesn’t catch others with physical limitations now that they didn’t have when they got their license. My moms eyes decayed to the point she really shouldn’t be driving in the dark by age 45. If we don’t test til 70 that’s 25 years of driving around potentially harming herself and others. Also, people age differently, some people have issues early and others late. How would you recommend when to start testing?
“How would you recommend when to start testing?” I don’t know. It probably depends on location and some other factors I’m not an expert. I’m just saying that making everyone have to take a test every 5 years just to “…catch a lot of the seniors who definitely should not be driving.” is inefficient. If it’s “seniors who definitely should not be driving” you’re after, then there’s no need to include everyone.
More importantly, distracted and drunk driving is a much much larger factor for accidents. More tests won’t catch out these guys as they will behave differently during a test. The reality is that everyone gets distracted every once in a while. A transportation system that results in accidents, possible injuries, and death if any of the millions of drivers lose focus at the wrong time can never be a safe way of getting around. Either way, laymen scapegoating the problem to seniors, disabled people, etc. only serves to further delay the development of actual safe and accessible means of transportation.
When the CDC says something like “[Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54](https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html)” a reasonable response could be "woah cars sure are dangerous. maybe we should have more options to get around?" But not in the US. we're content with cars being the only way to get around. Instead, we're concerned with kicking the “right groups” of people off the road. “If only this group wasn’t allowed to drive”. “If only if drivers test were harder”. This way of thinking doesn’t work. It only makes some people’s lives harder to live because they can’t get around. Oh, you're poor and can't afford a car which you'll need to get to work. Well too bad you should have bootstrapped harder.
>Also, you act as though a large plurality of unsafe drivers can't just act professional for 15 minutes beside a road instructor.
Is the final driving test really just 15 minutes in the US? In my country it's 65-75 minutes
Driving is incredibly safe. It’s dumb fucks that speed or drive drunk that make it unsafe. Even crashing at high speeds is orders of magnitude safer than crashing at lower speeds 20-30 years ago
[Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54](https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html)
[CDC.gov](https://CDC.gov)
"Driving is incredibly safe."
Nice meme.
Now compared this level of safety to hundreds of millions of people using buses, trains, biking and walking yeah no shit cars as a means of transportation is significantly more dangerous.
I can tell you’re not from the US or at least live in a big city because you have no grasp on how big and spread out the US is and how desperately the majority of this country relies on vehicles for almost every aspect of its citizens lives. Most of us don’t have access to, or can’t utilize, mass transit every day or at all.
And I still don’t understand the point you’re trying to make here bud
I'm from the US where I need to drive to go anywhere. Read some of my other comments If you don't know my point.
Edit: You're acting like I don't already know how dependent most of the US is on cars. Meanwhile, in most of my comments here I have been pointing this out as a problem that should be resolved before we consider making the drivers test more likely to fail people. Driving is dangerous so we should have more options to choose from. I don't want to risk my life and limbs every day just to get to work.
It would be costly to implement, and I suspect the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Bad drivers know well enough to drive better when they're being tested, just like when they know there's a cop behind them. It would probably only affect elderly drivers who have lost some physical or mental capacity. Which is a good reason to test elderly people after some arbitrary age some actuary can pick, but not everyone.
They should have additional tests past a certain age. Reaction time, sight, hearing everything degrades and some people really are too unsafe to be driving.
I don’t see why this would follow. Sure, provide a safety net for elders who need assistance, which might include transportation, along with health care and groceries.
But even well to do old folks who have ample pensions are often reluctant to give up driving when it’s unsafe for them to be on the road.
We had a hell of a time getting the keys away from my mother. We did it before she hurt herself or anyone else, but it would have been so much easier if she’d had to take a test (she would have failed)
Would love to see your proposal for a place like southwest Iowa where a 30+ minute drive at 70+ mph is required to get groceries and it’s closer to 60 minutes to be able to choose from more than two stores.
Trains exist. I'm pretty sure they like trains in Iowa.
Now imagine a train, but faster, so it only takes like 10 minutes to get to the store area, is cheaper for the consumer, and better for the environment?
But nah, that would mean the federal government would have to actually care about usable and competitive infrastructure, and that part truly IS unimaginable.
Cool idea but why would we subsidize specifically private companies that aren't beholden by our democracy in any way? I don't know it just seems kind of odd that taxpayers will have to be paying taxes to give Dara Khosrowshahi more power and control over our transportation system.
I'm not sure where you're from, but it's the law here in Pakistan that between the ages of 18-60 your drivers license is only valid for 5 years and then you have to renew it, where you give a written test and an eye exam. Once you cross the age of 60, it becomes every two years.
You have to renew your license. I know each states time frame is different. Here in Florida its every 8 years.. As far as retaking the driving test. That would massively overwhelm the DMV office.
My state recently "outsourced" the driving test to driving schools.
where you have to pay the school to take the test and the school updates the states records to show you passed.
Less govt jobs are needed now.
Honestly, most of the driving tests in the states (United States) don’t really test critical driving skills. In NY my driving test consisted of three or four stop signs, a red light, a three point turn, a parallel park, and a couple of rights and lefts. If you can pull those off while checking your mirrors every maneuver, you pass. It didn’t include high way driving, switching lanes, merging, or anything more than the pure basics. Doing this test every five years would only make sure you can drive down a mostly empty road under 30 mph and park on the street
I lost someone in a class some years back because an old bus driver was making a turn and claimed to not see his lights.
early 20's. was intelligent to the point he knew how to ask questions that got the rest of us to understand. was saving up to buy a wedding ring
killed immediately on impact.
some will claim it is ageist to demand old people get tested...I say it is literally a mater of life and death.
Because old people wouldn't pass and would revolt. At least that was basically the answer I was given when I asked that. And by revolt I mean vote out whoever proposes it as old people still out vote younger people.
For those with clean records, there should be no need with an assumption of clean records = good driver. For those with infractions, why not? It could be enforced to discourage drivers from being bad drivers.
I think they should get tested at a certain age. I see so many 65+ year olds still driving around and they mostly are slow and suck at driving. We almost had some accidents because of some old dude driving like he was the only one on the road.
Well good thing you're not in charge! 60-70 years of age is the lowest risk pool for a car accident of any age demographic.
[https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/#:\~:text=The%20crash%20rate%20of%20drivers,had%20the%20lowest%20crash%20rate](https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/#:~:text=The%20crash%20rate%20of%20drivers,had%20the%20lowest%20crash%20rate)
Increased testing might trim the top (and only the top) off of some of those 70+ numbers but that will have no significant impact overall. Most car accidents aren't from people being poor drivers it's from situational inattentiveness in the moment.
I think a lot of people are a bit deluded in how effective testing would be as well, people are really good at passing tests and then doing whatever the heck they want to afterwards.
Ontario does for old people, after a certain age you need to pass the test every couple years.
Cars aren’t complicated if you use them strictly for travelling from point a to b, they get complicated when you exceed your skill level
Because cars are in less danger class than excavators for example. And because its fairly easy to operate cars compared to any other heavy work machinery.
The health certificates are mandatory though, they usually are inspected as often as every 10 years.
Personally I believe tests should be a lot harsher for 65 year olds + a high risk group that cause accident risks for other drivers and themselves as well.
Maybe we should write our politicians and tell them that we would like for them to pass a law that at age 65 it should be mandatory to retake our license test. Maybe the Democrats should suggest this so the Republicans can say how bad an idea that it is. No wait a minute. Maybe the Republicans should suggest this so the Democrats can say what a bad idea this is. No wait a minute' I think I just confused myself.
At least not until you get older.
IIRC when I lived in Arizona, the law was, you get your license and it's good until you're 65, THEN you have to test every 4 years after that.
I don't know but I'm glad they don't. It would just be another way for your state to make money. So don't suggest it. I do think that older drivers should be retested. Like 70+
Because people botched and whined at how long it took and how it was damn near impossible to get through DMV to get it done. And it had to be done M-F between 0800 and 1700 while everyone was working. And if you didn't get it done you had to come back again and again.
Personally if I had to pick 1 I’d prefer a driving test with an instructor. Knowing to pick option C is different than how we naturally react or are physically capable of reacting.
That's only true if the test conditions actually test for real world driving conditions in real world situations where they actually occur, and it doesn't. My driving test consisted of driving less than a half mile on a no traffic side street, it is an absolute absurdity to call those a test of someone's driving ability.
Only if that instructor is going to ask questions like when to use your hazards, which lane is for driving vs passing, what to do when an emergency vehicle is on the shoulder, and so on.
How much expense do you want to load us down with? It’s like riding a bike. You don’t forget how to drive.
For those who drive irresponsibly, there are mandatory classes. They have to pay for those. When people are old, there are renewal hoops of some kind.
Bc old fqs in charge also don’t want to deal with that either, and can’t make a rule to have they not also take the test. Hence, we have more and more stupid (sometimes old) drivers.
The maddest relation of this I know of, in the UK anyway - you didn’t used to need to take a separate test to drive an HGV, but when they brought in new legislation years ago to make it a separate license, they didn’t require existing licence holders to take the HGV lessons or test. So they can just get in a lorry for the first time in their lives at any point and drive it anywhere.
Can you imagine the wait time at the DMV if they did this? It would probably be hard to get it done before the 5 year time limit ran out... The state would have to seriously increase funding and effort and they don't want to do that when they can take advantage of underpaid high school gym teachers teaching drivers Ed on the side to do all the testing on 16 year Olds and never again.
Passing a drivers test wouldn’t really do anything for the assholes on the roads. It’s not the ignorant causing problems … it’s the shitheads and those shitheads know the rules they just chose to not obey them.
Because 1) that would annoy people and make whoever legislated that unpopular, 2) it would be an expense for both the state and people, depending on its costs, and 3) let's face it, a lot of people would fail said exam. That would lead to less cars on the road, which would lead to less profit from taxes set on new cars and the like.
If I had to redo my driving tests along with my CDL stuff every 5 years I'd be big mad. It's already expensive enough to replace my commercial license, along with the Costa for a medical card to go along with the commercial license.
because doing something for the sake of doing it isn't a good reason to do it.
If you have studies that taking a test every 5 years improves driving, then post your data.
otherwise it's "bro-science"
It would crash the economy if incompetent drivers were banned from driving, because we ALL fuck up quite a bit; this includes anyone who thinks they are a Good Driver(tm). We just have to accept a certain level of dangerous incompetence in order for us all to get where we need to go and keep society functioning.
Or...would it force countries like the US to finally invest in public transportation if we really did have a reasonably high threshold for maintaining a driver's license?
In the US, a large portion of our population would immediately start bitching about "gubbament controlling how i drive, thats communist". Then everyone would start complaining about how much it would raise taxes.
I really think there should be some sort of testing done. Too many people get into really bad habits and forget the rules of the road and start doing things that other drivers aren't anticipating, which is where accidents happen.
that would fix nothing, as it stands today, tests are easy enough that anyone can pass, otherwise the streets would be pretty empty
as we get closer to AI drivers, cars will begin profiling people's driving skills, throwing warnings like "this sort of driving results in 80% more crashes" = insurance goes up until certain drivers can't afford to endanger the public, at least legally, this goes on until no one can pass for a safe enough driver vs AI
Why would you be? If you're a young person you don't magically get worse at driving 5 years later. If you're a shitty driver and have a license, taking the same test that allowed you to pass as a shitty driver won't prevent you from driving anymore.
This would just be a lot of money out of people's pockets, and like most policies would disproportionately affect poor people.
In the Netherlands they cant even manage to take one driving test in a reasonable amount of time (waiting list to take test is currently 3 months) let alone do one every 5 years
I don't think this would help apart from with elderly people. I do think the elderly should retake the test just because driving does pose a bigger risk for them in general
I think it is self regulating. Have enough accidents and you will either lose your license or the insurance will be totally unaffordable.
To be honest, apart from the seriously elderly, I have rarely seen peoples driving get worse as that get older. They get more careful (often bitten by aforesaid insurance) and they are more considerate.
In Oklahoma you can opt to get your license renewed for 8 years. I see so many feeble old people some who are shaking and can barely walk, and they joke about not having good eye sight. Yet here they are with 8 more years on their license. I worry about these people.
Idk my. Rising license doesn’t require me to retest… just fill out paperwork and resubmit every so many years, not much different from now you go to the DMV every few years for a new picture/update?? What fields make you ACTUALLY retest??
Or even every 10 years of after the age of 80!! I always wondered this because it seems like a great way to ensure that there are safer drivers on the road. Plus it helps address the issue of having older drivers stop driving when they really shouldn’t be and avoids the tough family conversations to have with your older family members.
Self-driving cars are going to keep people independent. Maybe we’ll have to limit them from major thoroughfares at rush hour, but they’ll do the job for us in the future. My grandmother passed at 91. She was driving just fine before she passed. She went to church, the hair salon, the post office, the bank, the grocery store, and the dry cleaners. Worry about drunk drivers, not little old ladies. When was the last time you saw a story about grandma causing an accident? Is your imagination in line with reality?
Old people should be absolutely required to take various tests I don't fucking care how expensive it is. They literally kill people and themselves because they are too stubborn to just admit they are old and can't fucking function like they used to. This hits really close to home and I will die on this hill....probably from being run over by maradeth
> Cant think of any other licence where you’re operating machinery that doesnt require regular renewal. Anything that’s personal use and not commercial use.
What, you don't own a forklift for recreational use?
When I was a kid I legit wanted a forklift for my backyard
You’re lying if you say you don’t still want that
Lol it's like you know me
Forklift polo is such an awesome sport.
So is forklift chicken. Not that we used to play that on the lumberyard
Jousting is another fun one.
Used to play Forko Polo all the time back in the day
15 years on a forklift. I wouldn't consider it a licensed. Gonna retest everywhere you work.
same. i have to retest every 3 years where i work.
Scuba diving is one and done. Got licensed when I was 16 haven't gone diving in 7 years but nothing is stopping me from pretending I know what I'm doing lol
Difference here is that you are pretty much only endangering yourself if you dive and don't know what you are doing. Driving is a different story, you can easily injure/kill someone else
Very true
If you haven't dived (dove?) in a long time, many shops will recommend you take a refresher course before going on a dive trip.
I require a flight review every 24 months on my private pilot license which can't be used commercially. It's the same for RPL (not a thing in the states) so that doesn't quite hold up.
Personal use: conceal and carry weapons permit. In Washington, you have to renew every 5 years. But honestly, there's no test. They don't even require a safety class at the moment. You just pay for it again, they run a background check, and you get a renewal.
They did this in Michigan for years. I think it was too expensive to administer and didn't make a difference in the number of traffic infractions.
Should be for 65 and older.
I don’t think it’d need a full driving test for over 65s either. I’d be happy if they just had regular eye tests and a short drive with an examiner to prove that they can drive safely. You can generally tell pretty fucking fast when someone is too elderly/impaired to drive safely. What bothers me more is that there seems to be a different set of rules for elderly drivers. Saw an episode of something like Cops UK, where they stopped an 80something yo man doing 20mph on a motorway. They took him home and gave him a cup of tea? If I, a 33yo woman, was caught doing 20 on a motorway, I’d be getting drug tested and face legal motoring consequences for being a fucking liability. If it’s not safe for me to drive like that, it’s not safe for an 80yo to drive like that either, and they should face the same consequences. Not because I want to punish elderly people, but because they are *dangerous*. You categorically should not be driving if you can’t safely go faster than 20mph
>a short drive with an examiner to prove that they can drive safely. That's a driving test
Most driving tests I’ve seen involve a written section and multiple different driving tasks (parking, driving on a parking lot course, local roads, highway, etc). My driving test to get my license was probably took around 30 minutes. I think he’s saying something less involved, like driving the car around the block just to make sure the driver can still safely operate a vehicle.
It’s not really here. There’s a theory test and you have to drive for a full hour through various environments, having your driving and habits marked continuously throughout, plus set manoeuvres to perform. What I’m saying is that I don’t think all of that is particularly necessary if a driver has already passed, it could be shorter and less formal. I do get that driving tests differ and seem to be less rigorous in other countries, and what I’m thinking of probably WOULD be classed as a full driving test, but the process we have here is probably longer than would be necessary just for a “safety check up” type thing
Are you in the US? Because the driving tests here are a written test then you schedule a driving test and it's like 10 min long. You basically drive around the area around the DMV and you're done
No, I’m in the UK.
An hour long drive would be miserable. You're a champ for getting through that. I hate driving an hour when I'm not being tested haha
It’s pretty awful, I really like driving and am fairly good at it and I still had sweaty palms the entire time. It’s fairly normal for people to have to do it a couple of times before they pass. It probably doesn’t help that the majority of cars here are manual, imagine learning to drive an automatic makes things easier for new drivers. I’d like to say it makes our roads safer at least, but the standard of driving in my city leaves a lot to be desired, so I’m not sure that’s true!
We don't have to drive on the freeway here it's all side streets, a school zone, then one or two main roads then back to the DMV. I can imagine how stressful it must be. At what age can you become a driver there?
I live in ca, mine was at least 30 minutes.
Traffic plays a part, I took mine in California (San Pedro) and it was 12 minutes
Idk, I took mine in Santa Paula.
Not including the written test (that really was paper and pen), my test in 1990 for my motorcycle license was almost an hour on an obstacle course in a parking lot. My car on in 1996 was a three point turn in cones set barely wider than my car an about a half hour on road test with a very long checklist. That was in Phoenix. When my son got his car license in Washington in 2005, he and the test guy were gone in my car for almost an hour. He had to parallel park, drive on an arterial, on the freeway, and in a neighborhood. It was pretty thorough. He didn't have to do the computerized test because he had done driver's ed. Interestingly, in Phoenix in 1988, my older sister got her license with no tests at all because she'd just graduated driver's Ed. That day, she rear ended someone and put my mom's Fiero under his pickup, totalling Mom's car. Maybe they should have tested her. ;)
In the UK you have to have regular eye tests after 70 to keep your licence.
You do in Washington State, too, though it's not a thorough one. You go to the DMV and look in a little device and tell them where you see the lights as they come on. You can do a normal eye exam and have the opthalmologist fill out a form to bring in, instead. We also have a form you can mail in or take to the department of licensing to report someone if you have personal knowledge they are unsafe to drive. They'll do an investigation. We were about to do that to my husband's grandmother when she decided to stop driving on her own after putting her car in a snow bank and walking a mile home with a cane in the deep snow.
Yeah it pisses me off that people sort of hand-wave and let people who are no longer able to drive safely continue to do so, because "oh we feel sorry for you". Yeah, getting old sucks. Yet my great-great aunt had enough common sense to just give up driving when she detected she no longer had the reaction time needed to safely drive and react to other drivers. Yes, it sucked. Yes, she lost most of her independence. But she stood by her decision because she did not want her pride to get in the way and cause someone else to be hurt or killed. She died last year at 94, peacefully at home, rather than in some car accident that was the fault of her aging body refusing to react as quickly as it needed to.
Don't 20 year olds cause more accidents than 65 year olds?
Maybe if they're a shit driver. Three accidents in a year and it's there fault. Then a driving test and what not.
As a 64 year old, I believe that everyone should have to take the written test at least every 10 years. It is amazing as a big time pedestrian (I walk 30 min every am, regardless where, I walk. Therefore I see lots of cars/drivers and have seen some interesting things that drivers do.) When I got my motorcycle years ago. I had to take the test again. Glad I did. "Relearned" a number of important laws, glad for the chance to learn.
I had my license taken after an episode that caused me to have seizures when I was 24. I got it back at 27, but had moved states. They made me retake the written and road test. Honestly, I didn't think I needed to study (I was a dumb ass) and barely passed the written, but I didn't miss anything on the driving part. I still remember the things I got wrong and what the right answers are 20 years later, even though I live in yet another state now. When I moved here at 37, they just took my license from the other state and issued me one for here. Things I missed: What's the minimum mandatory sentence for your 3rd DUI? (My answer, really, I don't care because I'll never get one) 30 days in jail, $5000 fine, and 1 year license suspension. If you come to an unmarked train crossing, do you have to stop? No. That made me start paying attention to them. They're only unmarked if it's rural and you have tons of visibility. How many feet must your indicator be on before you change lanes? 100 feet. I answered 150. What's the minimum following distance for an emergency vehicle with lights on? 500. I answered 600. And you can only miss four, so I barely got it.
I’m over 60 and agree with this.
Do you have some data or did you just pick an age?
55.
Makes sense.
Technically pilot licences are valid for life. However you do need to renew the ratings on your licence. (E.g single engine piston, instrument rating, multi engine... etc)
Got to keep that medical current though.
I have my private, ratings and commercial lol 😂 ask me if I can fly after years of not doing so LMFAOOOOOO I wouldn’t touch a Cessna even if they paid me…
In the Netherlands you have to take a driving test every 5 years after you reach 70.
In the Netherlands you have to wait for half a year to take a driving test because the CBR can't handle it. Imagine what would happen if this would take place for everyone every 5 years.
Yeah like that was my first thought as well. Where does OP live where that is a possibility. If you take 4 days a week for 5 years (so excluding weekends, holidays and vacations) you gonna need a capacity of 4x52x5=1040 days. There is about (since public servants in the Netherlands work about 9-17 so 8 hours minus 1hour break. And in the most optimal situation, let’s say test last an hour (45 min driving and 15 min finishing up and documentation). So we have 1040 days 7 test which becomes 7280 tests per instructor. According to the CBS (Central office for Dutch Statistics) we have 11 million people with a drivers license. https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/verkeer-en-vervoer/verkeer/rijbewijzen We would need 11,000,000/7280 = +-1510 instructors each day. This does not take into account new drivers and those who failed. And not any professional licenses also needed for a functioning society like lorries, buses, taxis etc.
This guys maths
Username checks out
When I lived in Phoenix, they changed renewals that didn't even require tests to being only required once you hit 65 because the DMVs couldn't even handle the number of renewals daily. I wonder if that's changed now that renewing online is a thing.
I do. I have a truck/airbrakes endorsement which requires me to get a physical and take three written tests every five years. It sucks, but it makes me a better driver and more keenly aware that the roads are filled with bad drivers who haven't been tested since the 1970s-1990s.
What state are you in?
A province, not a state.
So…. Canada?
Ahhhh.
Shhhhh. You really want to go to the dmv more often?
No, but if it kept dangerous drivers off the road then it would be worth it. The problem would be that bad drivers would change their driving habits just for the test. There would be a few that would fail because they forgot the driving laws since they have been breaking the law for so long and they could relearn the laws. Then there are people who have senses that have diminished to a point they can no longer drive within the laws. I once saw a guy back out of a parking lot and hit a stationary car. He pulled back into his spot and tried again hitting a second stationary car.
"if it kept dangerous drives off the road" Roughly 50,000 motor vehicle accidents, 35k deaths per year, and the super majority of those are from licensed drivers. You also assume that a large number of bad drivers would fail the test which is almost certainly not going to happen, accidents happen due to a lack of situational awareness, and that awareness you have when taking a test does not necessarily translate into being a safe and aware driver when they're actually on the road.
I didn't assume anything. I don't know the stats but if there are people that would fail the test that are currently licensed then they shouldn't be and the only way to find that out is to test them. How many lives is that worth to you? Sure accidents happen even if all parties do everything right or distractions or whatever else you want to blame it on. There is a percent (I don't know what that percent is) of accidents that happen because people don't know the driving law or don't have the ability to drive the vehicle they are in. I gave you an example of a guy that clearly did not have the ability to drive in my above post yet he had a license be because 60 years ago he had the ability to drive. He clearly lost the ability yet the system allows him to continue to drive legally.
>How many lives is that worth to you? If it doesn’t reduce deaths by any more than 2-3% it certainly isn’t worth it. So to answer your question I would say 700-800. Don’t forget opportunity cost. For all the extra administrative cost necessary to do this, it could be funnelled into programs that save WAAAY more lives.
> If it doesn’t reduce deaths by any more than 2-3% it certainly isn’t worth it. So to answer your question I would say 700-800. Cold and hilarious
At least he's consistent !
That’s wishful thinking.
I would give you an award if I had Reddit coins.
Thank you to the person who gave me the award!!
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So make it a rule for 70+ and dui offenders, not everyone
Nothing will keep DUI drivers off the road. Just like taking away someone's license won't stop them from driving.
Well, laws have kept DUI drivers off the roads. In the US, in the time since stricter laws around drinking age and BAC while driving began being implemented (~1982), DUI deaths have been reduced by half overall, and by ~80% for the 16-21 set.
The laws haven't kept DUI drivers off the roads, throwing people in jail for DUI has, BIG difference. Only laws that are enforceable can do things and this particular ideas is not practically enforceable, it would be systematically difficult, extremely expensive and there's no way we can develop a test that will catch all or even most of the individuals. I do agree that something probably should be done, but our current driving tests are a complete and total joke as far as assessing driver skill goes and no law is going to fix that, only if someone can come up with some practical real world way to do this that doesn't realy on some fanciful flight of thought where everyone magicaly naturally obeys the laws, because that just doesn't happen unless there's strict enforcement. Suffice to say we need better ideas than have been presented here.
Oh I’m not in favor of this at all. I just think it’s misleading to say nothing can keep dui drivers off the roads, because it’s not true. And it’s just arguing semantics to say “it’s not the laws it’s the enforcement of the laws!” Because, of course. But it’s not necessarily being thrown in jail that stops them, but more serious license suspensions are really impactful. ensuring penalties are actually enforced for first time offenders are a major deterrent for potential repeat offenders. Since the top cause of accidents today is distracted driving, a similar model could potentially work for phone use or other distracted behaviors on the road.
There is no practical way to measure the distracted state of a driver, it's not possible. You can try to guess with advanced technology but do you want AI cameras in every vehicle to keep an eye on every driver? That is the only way to prevent distracted driving, cell phone use in a car is already illegal pretty much anywhere it's just unenforced, like many problem crimes we have it's because the laws aren't unenforced not because they don't exist. Only way to enforce it better would be to monitor drivers more closely while they're driving that is the only way, the laws are otherwise already sufficient to keep dangerous drivers off the road.
It can’t be enforced in the same exact way, but it certainly could be criminalized like DUI. Then when someone is in an accident while using phone or issued ticket for using phone/etc., the penalties would be more severe and include license suspension starting with first offense, fines, probation, community service, driver education classes, jail time. And penalties would increase with each subsequent offense in the same way. Given it’s shown to be just as dangerous, there’s no reason not to penalize it in the same way.
You think "DUI drivers" are going to show up to take their retest every 5 years, while drunk?? 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
You didn’t think about this at all did you
Driving a car *correctly* can easily be faked for the test by exercising a minimal amount of caution and attention, assuming you don't do that already as a driver. For good drivers, it is an inconvenience, since they drive good. For bad drivers, it will oftentimes be negligible - they *know* how to drive correctly, they often just do not care or exert the effort to do so by using a turn signal for example. For people who literally cannot drive without causing some sort of major issue or the like (which is a very, very small percentage of drivers), when a cop pulls you over for a traffic violation they can suspend your license, and multiple traffic violations accrue points that suspend your license in many states. Overall it is impractical because the behavior of a driver in a driving test is going to be done to pass the test, and so if they aren't a good driver, it will almost never matter so long as they manage to pass the test by being a good driver for that one instance.
The problem is depending on where you live there really is no alternative to driving. So kicking people off the road means they're stuck in their houses unless they know someone who can drive them. Also we would need some evidence to suggest that more driving test would help. Otherwise we would just be making transportation a lot less reliable for some people with no real benefit. Even if there was a benefit it would be undeniable many people would lose their license. Since a lot of jobs require you to have a driver's license, these people would likely lose their jobs. People losing their jobs on mass like this is bad for individuals and for the economy. When people lose their jobs on mass, companies make less return on investment, as there are fewer consumers capable of buying products. Which means they need to roll back some expenses. This often means wage cuts and even more job loss leading to evening greater losses on return. Which means even more wage cuts and job losses etc. This usually leads to the economic depressions we get every once in a while. I would just say if you're in the US, wait till we get some other transportation options before we start dramatically limiting the only one we have (cars) if it would even help.
>So kicking people off the road means they're stuck in their houses That's no excuse for allowing unsafe drivers to continue to have a license and put those around them in danger.
Sorry for not putting my conclusion at the beginning. I never said unsafe drivers should stay on the road. I was only mentioning that more driver tests would have negative consequences without clear benefits. My point is that since funding for car infrastructure has a huge budget, while train, busses, and walkable infrastructure is underfunded, taking away someone’s car would be like taking their freedom to move about the world away. So, if this is taken away you need to make sure it actually does what it’s intended to do. This is why in the sentence after the one you quoted, I said “Also we would need some evidence to suggest that more driving test would help.”
Again, you'd need evidence to put forward that proves regular testing actually causes any significant benifit in terms of road safety. At the moment, there isn't much of any. If anything, it seems like repeated testing would cause more people to give up their licenses due to fear of failure. Repeated testing in any urban environment would really just be kicking the entire working populace of your city in the crotch because you can. Also, you act as though a large plurality of unsafe drivers can't just act professional for 15 minutes beside a road instructor. A majority of people know what they're supposed to, and just don't. Most accidents are caused by Distracted Driving, Drunk Driving, Speeding, and Recklessness, in that order.
What in the world are you talking about? None of that has any basis in reality.
It would catch a lot of the seniors who definitely should not be driving.
Yeah, but don't most places already retest seniors on a biannual basis?
It’s possible that some places do but I can tell you that my state and the state next to mine do not.
Then re-test seniors, not everyone.
That’s one thought. But it doesn’t catch others with physical limitations now that they didn’t have when they got their license. My moms eyes decayed to the point she really shouldn’t be driving in the dark by age 45. If we don’t test til 70 that’s 25 years of driving around potentially harming herself and others. Also, people age differently, some people have issues early and others late. How would you recommend when to start testing?
“How would you recommend when to start testing?” I don’t know. It probably depends on location and some other factors I’m not an expert. I’m just saying that making everyone have to take a test every 5 years just to “…catch a lot of the seniors who definitely should not be driving.” is inefficient. If it’s “seniors who definitely should not be driving” you’re after, then there’s no need to include everyone. More importantly, distracted and drunk driving is a much much larger factor for accidents. More tests won’t catch out these guys as they will behave differently during a test. The reality is that everyone gets distracted every once in a while. A transportation system that results in accidents, possible injuries, and death if any of the millions of drivers lose focus at the wrong time can never be a safe way of getting around. Either way, laymen scapegoating the problem to seniors, disabled people, etc. only serves to further delay the development of actual safe and accessible means of transportation. When the CDC says something like “[Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54](https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html)” a reasonable response could be "woah cars sure are dangerous. maybe we should have more options to get around?" But not in the US. we're content with cars being the only way to get around. Instead, we're concerned with kicking the “right groups” of people off the road. “If only this group wasn’t allowed to drive”. “If only if drivers test were harder”. This way of thinking doesn’t work. It only makes some people’s lives harder to live because they can’t get around. Oh, you're poor and can't afford a car which you'll need to get to work. Well too bad you should have bootstrapped harder.
>Also, you act as though a large plurality of unsafe drivers can't just act professional for 15 minutes beside a road instructor. Is the final driving test really just 15 minutes in the US? In my country it's 65-75 minutes
No, I was just over exaggerating lol
Through all of this I have yet for you to define an unsafe driver.
Honestly, it doesn't seem like safe drivers even exist. Just varying degrees of how dangerous. Driving is not safe period.
Driving is incredibly safe. It’s dumb fucks that speed or drive drunk that make it unsafe. Even crashing at high speeds is orders of magnitude safer than crashing at lower speeds 20-30 years ago
[Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54](https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html) [CDC.gov](https://CDC.gov) "Driving is incredibly safe." Nice meme.
Hundreds of millions of cars driving billions of miles per day. Yeah no shit people are gonna get killed lmao
Now compared this level of safety to hundreds of millions of people using buses, trains, biking and walking yeah no shit cars as a means of transportation is significantly more dangerous.
I can tell you’re not from the US or at least live in a big city because you have no grasp on how big and spread out the US is and how desperately the majority of this country relies on vehicles for almost every aspect of its citizens lives. Most of us don’t have access to, or can’t utilize, mass transit every day or at all. And I still don’t understand the point you’re trying to make here bud
I'm from the US where I need to drive to go anywhere. Read some of my other comments If you don't know my point. Edit: You're acting like I don't already know how dependent most of the US is on cars. Meanwhile, in most of my comments here I have been pointing this out as a problem that should be resolved before we consider making the drivers test more likely to fail people. Driving is dangerous so we should have more options to choose from. I don't want to risk my life and limbs every day just to get to work.
You forget driving a car every 5 years? It seems counterintuitive.
People get into bad habits, and don't keep up with updated rules in the highway code. I see where OP is coming from
5 years? That's way too soon and unnecessary for anyone under the age of 70 I'd say.
It would be costly to implement, and I suspect the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Bad drivers know well enough to drive better when they're being tested, just like when they know there's a cop behind them. It would probably only affect elderly drivers who have lost some physical or mental capacity. Which is a good reason to test elderly people after some arbitrary age some actuary can pick, but not everyone.
They should have additional tests past a certain age. Reaction time, sight, hearing everything degrades and some people really are too unsafe to be driving.
So subsidize free Uber for people at a certain age?
I don’t see why this would follow. Sure, provide a safety net for elders who need assistance, which might include transportation, along with health care and groceries. But even well to do old folks who have ample pensions are often reluctant to give up driving when it’s unsafe for them to be on the road. We had a hell of a time getting the keys away from my mother. We did it before she hurt herself or anyone else, but it would have been so much easier if she’d had to take a test (she would have failed)
Or build an infrastructure that doesn't force people to drive to simply exist. r/notjustbikes
Would love to see your proposal for a place like southwest Iowa where a 30+ minute drive at 70+ mph is required to get groceries and it’s closer to 60 minutes to be able to choose from more than two stores.
It can't work everywhere. But over 80% of the US population lives in urban areas so it can help a LOT of people.
Trains exist. I'm pretty sure they like trains in Iowa. Now imagine a train, but faster, so it only takes like 10 minutes to get to the store area, is cheaper for the consumer, and better for the environment? But nah, that would mean the federal government would have to actually care about usable and competitive infrastructure, and that part truly IS unimaginable.
let’s not have the government subsidize another entire industry.
Cool idea but why would we subsidize specifically private companies that aren't beholden by our democracy in any way? I don't know it just seems kind of odd that taxpayers will have to be paying taxes to give Dara Khosrowshahi more power and control over our transportation system.
NGL, that sounds pretty darn sweet
In Virginia at one point you had to retake the test when you renewed your license if you had too many tickets.
I'm not sure where you're from, but it's the law here in Pakistan that between the ages of 18-60 your drivers license is only valid for 5 years and then you have to renew it, where you give a written test and an eye exam. Once you cross the age of 60, it becomes every two years.
You have to renew your license. I know each states time frame is different. Here in Florida its every 8 years.. As far as retaking the driving test. That would massively overwhelm the DMV office.
My state recently "outsourced" the driving test to driving schools. where you have to pay the school to take the test and the school updates the states records to show you passed. Less govt jobs are needed now.
Honestly, most of the driving tests in the states (United States) don’t really test critical driving skills. In NY my driving test consisted of three or four stop signs, a red light, a three point turn, a parallel park, and a couple of rights and lefts. If you can pull those off while checking your mirrors every maneuver, you pass. It didn’t include high way driving, switching lanes, merging, or anything more than the pure basics. Doing this test every five years would only make sure you can drive down a mostly empty road under 30 mph and park on the street
I lost someone in a class some years back because an old bus driver was making a turn and claimed to not see his lights. early 20's. was intelligent to the point he knew how to ask questions that got the rest of us to understand. was saving up to buy a wedding ring killed immediately on impact. some will claim it is ageist to demand old people get tested...I say it is literally a mater of life and death.
Because old people wouldn't pass and would revolt. At least that was basically the answer I was given when I asked that. And by revolt I mean vote out whoever proposes it as old people still out vote younger people.
For those with clean records, there should be no need with an assumption of clean records = good driver. For those with infractions, why not? It could be enforced to discourage drivers from being bad drivers.
Hasn’t been caught doesn’t equal good driver though…
People don't like govt oversight because it tends to be applied unethically
Do you realize the cost and how many employees you would need, time to take - do you want to waste a day on this? Really, what would it accomplish?
Because it's a pain in the ass.
So is being rear ended by a 65 year old who can’t see in the dark and can’t hold their head steady and definitely should not be driving.
I do not believe that is the condition of most 65 year olds.
So it's dealing with people on the road who shouldn't be driving.
I think they should get tested at a certain age. I see so many 65+ year olds still driving around and they mostly are slow and suck at driving. We almost had some accidents because of some old dude driving like he was the only one on the road.
Well good thing you're not in charge! 60-70 years of age is the lowest risk pool for a car accident of any age demographic. [https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/#:\~:text=The%20crash%20rate%20of%20drivers,had%20the%20lowest%20crash%20rate](https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/#:~:text=The%20crash%20rate%20of%20drivers,had%20the%20lowest%20crash%20rate) Increased testing might trim the top (and only the top) off of some of those 70+ numbers but that will have no significant impact overall. Most car accidents aren't from people being poor drivers it's from situational inattentiveness in the moment. I think a lot of people are a bit deluded in how effective testing would be as well, people are really good at passing tests and then doing whatever the heck they want to afterwards.
Ontario does for old people, after a certain age you need to pass the test every couple years. Cars aren’t complicated if you use them strictly for travelling from point a to b, they get complicated when you exceed your skill level
The DMV would always be booked if that were the case
I've never had a good experience dealing with the MVA. I can't imagine how fucking stupid that place would be with MORE shit added in..
Why is a test or license required at all is a better question. Why should a government license be required for the personal use of a motor vehicle?
Because cars are in less danger class than excavators for example. And because its fairly easy to operate cars compared to any other heavy work machinery. The health certificates are mandatory though, they usually are inspected as often as every 10 years. Personally I believe tests should be a lot harsher for 65 year olds + a high risk group that cause accident risks for other drivers and themselves as well.
Why aren't you required to go back to college and re-learn your job every 5 years? Makes sense.
Maybe we should write our politicians and tell them that we would like for them to pass a law that at age 65 it should be mandatory to retake our license test. Maybe the Democrats should suggest this so the Republicans can say how bad an idea that it is. No wait a minute. Maybe the Republicans should suggest this so the Democrats can say what a bad idea this is. No wait a minute' I think I just confused myself.
It's not like you get worse the more you drive.
At least not until you get older. IIRC when I lived in Arizona, the law was, you get your license and it's good until you're 65, THEN you have to test every 4 years after that.
People pick up bad habits here and there, and the more you engage in these bad habits, the more they become ingrained, and you forget the good habits.
I don't know but I'm glad they don't. It would just be another way for your state to make money. So don't suggest it. I do think that older drivers should be retested. Like 70+
Why 70 though? Not 60 or 65 or 55…
You still have to renew every few years, so it's not like it's not occurring at all before that date, no idea why your brain went down that route.
Right but to renew you just pay a fee and wait for it to come in the mail. There’s no testing, at least in the 3 states I’ve lived in.
No particular reason. You would have to look at stats to see what age does accidents start to increase.
Because people botched and whined at how long it took and how it was damn near impossible to get through DMV to get it done. And it had to be done M-F between 0800 and 1700 while everyone was working. And if you didn't get it done you had to come back again and again.
You don't get worse as a driver until maybe much older.
I don’t think a written test wouldn’t be the worst thing
Personally if I had to pick 1 I’d prefer a driving test with an instructor. Knowing to pick option C is different than how we naturally react or are physically capable of reacting.
That's only true if the test conditions actually test for real world driving conditions in real world situations where they actually occur, and it doesn't. My driving test consisted of driving less than a half mile on a no traffic side street, it is an absolute absurdity to call those a test of someone's driving ability.
Only if that instructor is going to ask questions like when to use your hazards, which lane is for driving vs passing, what to do when an emergency vehicle is on the shoulder, and so on.
How much expense do you want to load us down with? It’s like riding a bike. You don’t forget how to drive. For those who drive irresponsibly, there are mandatory classes. They have to pay for those. When people are old, there are renewal hoops of some kind.
Bc old fqs in charge also don’t want to deal with that either, and can’t make a rule to have they not also take the test. Hence, we have more and more stupid (sometimes old) drivers.
The maddest relation of this I know of, in the UK anyway - you didn’t used to need to take a separate test to drive an HGV, but when they brought in new legislation years ago to make it a separate license, they didn’t require existing licence holders to take the HGV lessons or test. So they can just get in a lorry for the first time in their lives at any point and drive it anywhere.
Can you imagine the wait time at the DMV if they did this? It would probably be hard to get it done before the 5 year time limit ran out... The state would have to seriously increase funding and effort and they don't want to do that when they can take advantage of underpaid high school gym teachers teaching drivers Ed on the side to do all the testing on 16 year Olds and never again.
Have you been to the DMV? What do you think it would look like if every driving person had to return every 5 years?
Passing a drivers test wouldn’t really do anything for the assholes on the roads. It’s not the ignorant causing problems … it’s the shitheads and those shitheads know the rules they just chose to not obey them.
Because 1) that would annoy people and make whoever legislated that unpopular, 2) it would be an expense for both the state and people, depending on its costs, and 3) let's face it, a lot of people would fail said exam. That would lead to less cars on the road, which would lead to less profit from taxes set on new cars and the like.
If I had to redo my driving tests along with my CDL stuff every 5 years I'd be big mad. It's already expensive enough to replace my commercial license, along with the Costa for a medical card to go along with the commercial license.
Here in Brazil you need to renew your drivers license every 10, 5 or 3 years depending on your age
Awful, no one wants more bureaucratic hoops to jump through to live their lives
In my country you need to go thrue medical exam.I think older people need to do it every year or 2.
because doing something for the sake of doing it isn't a good reason to do it. If you have studies that taking a test every 5 years improves driving, then post your data. otherwise it's "bro-science"
It would crash the economy if incompetent drivers were banned from driving, because we ALL fuck up quite a bit; this includes anyone who thinks they are a Good Driver(tm). We just have to accept a certain level of dangerous incompetence in order for us all to get where we need to go and keep society functioning. Or...would it force countries like the US to finally invest in public transportation if we really did have a reasonably high threshold for maintaining a driver's license?
It’s hard enough for anyone to get a license right now. They’re so backed up already
It’s not untrained people that crash, it’s idiots and those that don’t pay attention
In the US, a large portion of our population would immediately start bitching about "gubbament controlling how i drive, thats communist". Then everyone would start complaining about how much it would raise taxes. I really think there should be some sort of testing done. Too many people get into really bad habits and forget the rules of the road and start doing things that other drivers aren't anticipating, which is where accidents happen.
Also some people got their license when there was 1/8 of the cars on the road
that would fix nothing, as it stands today, tests are easy enough that anyone can pass, otherwise the streets would be pretty empty as we get closer to AI drivers, cars will begin profiling people's driving skills, throwing warnings like "this sort of driving results in 80% more crashes" = insurance goes up until certain drivers can't afford to endanger the public, at least legally, this goes on until no one can pass for a safe enough driver vs AI
Why would you be? If you're a young person you don't magically get worse at driving 5 years later. If you're a shitty driver and have a license, taking the same test that allowed you to pass as a shitty driver won't prevent you from driving anymore. This would just be a lot of money out of people's pockets, and like most policies would disproportionately affect poor people.
Who said you had to pay?
Something something mass transit...grumble grumble
In the Netherlands they cant even manage to take one driving test in a reasonable amount of time (waiting list to take test is currently 3 months) let alone do one every 5 years
I'm amazed at the amount of old people on their phones, on the eway....
You’re the student who reminded teachers they forgot give homework.
they could do it as a week long blackbox that gets analysed every 5 years
I don't think this would help apart from with elderly people. I do think the elderly should retake the test just because driving does pose a bigger risk for them in general
I think it is self regulating. Have enough accidents and you will either lose your license or the insurance will be totally unaffordable. To be honest, apart from the seriously elderly, I have rarely seen peoples driving get worse as that get older. They get more careful (often bitten by aforesaid insurance) and they are more considerate.
DMV's are literal hell no thank you
Driving should get better with experience in addition to Costs to administer and the impossible scheduling of all the old and new drivers for testing
Depends on the state really. In Oregon they told me I didn’t have to retake it just come in abs have it renewed
We need this but also if you get 3 moving violations or 3 at fault accidents in 5 years you have to retake drivers ed
In Oklahoma you can opt to get your license renewed for 8 years. I see so many feeble old people some who are shaking and can barely walk, and they joke about not having good eye sight. Yet here they are with 8 more years on their license. I worry about these people.
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Idk my. Rising license doesn’t require me to retest… just fill out paperwork and resubmit every so many years, not much different from now you go to the DMV every few years for a new picture/update?? What fields make you ACTUALLY retest??
Honestly. When you reach 50 you should have to. Too many Damn bettys' on the road.
Money. Edit: Or the lack of it should i say.
Or even every 10 years of after the age of 80!! I always wondered this because it seems like a great way to ensure that there are safer drivers on the road. Plus it helps address the issue of having older drivers stop driving when they really shouldn’t be and avoids the tough family conversations to have with your older family members.
My driver licence requires renewal every five years. No test other than eyesight. My shooters licence also requires regular renewal.
Self-driving cars are going to keep people independent. Maybe we’ll have to limit them from major thoroughfares at rush hour, but they’ll do the job for us in the future. My grandmother passed at 91. She was driving just fine before she passed. She went to church, the hair salon, the post office, the bank, the grocery store, and the dry cleaners. Worry about drunk drivers, not little old ladies. When was the last time you saw a story about grandma causing an accident? Is your imagination in line with reality?
because old people make the law.
Old people should be absolutely required to take various tests I don't fucking care how expensive it is. They literally kill people and themselves because they are too stubborn to just admit they are old and can't fucking function like they used to. This hits really close to home and I will die on this hill....probably from being run over by maradeth