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City cyclists (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Cian Ginty:Flickr)Include cycling awareness in driving test, says IAM
Just passing the driving test doesn't equip young drivers to use the roads, says the Institute of Advanced Motorists. The charity wants to see a wider range of driving conditions included in the test, along with more about cycling.
The IAM is calling for the UK driving test to be revamped to make it more relevant to the real world risks that young drivers face.
Currently the driving test does not include any testing of a driver’s ability to cope with country roads, poor weather or driving at night, even though those areas are the main risk factors in the first six months of solo driving.
The IAM also wants to see the testing system make sure new drivers know how to behave around cyclists.
IAM’s director of policy and research, Neil Grieg told road.cc: "The IAM are very supportive of the current moves to include more cycling scenarios in the hazard perception test and cycling related questions in the theory test.
“We also want approved driving instructors to discuss cycling safety with learners and be quality assessed on that by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency to ensure it happens."
However, including awareness of cyclists in the practical test is tricky.
Grieg said: “It’s hard to see how any compulsory elements around cycling can be put into the practical test as you never know if you will be passing a cyclist or will have local cycling facilities to deal with during the test. In London it will inevitably be more crucial than in say a rural area but that would be reflected in the learner's experience anyway.”
More broadly, the IAM wants to see a process of graduated testing replace the current system in which drivers are allowed to drive after passing just one set of tests.
Greig said: “The driving test needs to become a much more integrated part of a graduated licensing system that picks up on best practice from around the world. For instance, Austria has a ‘second phase’ licensing system, where young drivers come back in the 12 months after the test for a further three interventions to examine attitude changes and skills.”
The IAM say young male driver casualties have dropped by a third in in Austria as a result of the initiative.
The organisation also supports a 12 month minimum learning period prior to taking the practical test, limits on peer passenger numbers, suggests that the practical test includes higher speed roads and supports a lower drink-drive limit for new drivers.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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Sorry - issue 3 - massive space for motoring:...
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Yes ... but (just due to the large numbers of people affected) this likely would only proceed in the UK at a very ... cautious ... pace....
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21 comments
I'd go further and say that for a road-planner or traffic-engineer car should be the last option for any journey and should have to be publicly justified.
As a requirement to hold a driving license, all motorists should have to complete 20 hours of cycling every year, that would dramatically improve driving standards overnight.
It should also be a requirement for being a road-planner or traffic-engineer.
There is no mention here of drivers who passed their test many moons ago, have plenty of bad habits & health conditions that make them a liability to other road users.
in my experience the majority of bad driving is not by young drivers particularly but drivers who don't or can't assess when it is safe to overtake a cyclist and they are all ages
When my daughter was a learner driver I kept on having to tell her to slow down on country roads. The speed limit is just that, a limit not a goal. "Drive to the conditions". Her response was that her (male) instructor told her that going to slowly would fail her because the examiner would think she lacked confidence. Her instructor contradicted a lot of other advice I gave her (I have passed the IAM test).
She then changed to a female instructor who magically confirmed all the advice I had been giving my daughter. Neither instructors gave her any instruction on how to deal with vulnerable road users, and that's because its not in the curriculum, and it's not being tested. This, despite the fact that pedestrians and cyclists are the single biggest road casualty group.
There is no consistency in the standard of instruction, and how to deal with all vulnerable road users needs to be included. Both these issues need to be dealt with.
"accidents"!?
Don't think so. Crashes, yes. Collisions, yes.
Just saying. .....
How about making Bikeability Level 3 or Compulsory Basic Training a prerequisite for anyone under 25 taking the practical test unless they are disabled?
Surely a clear statement that cyclists have exactly the same rights as any other road user would suffice? Many drivers seem to feel that cyclists are a "lesser" road user hence priority and even being given road room is negotiable. I suspect this attitude to be at the root of many unfortunate incidents.
Definitely agree and, to 'retro fit' this to existing drivers, how about some 1970 style information films? There are many other subjects that could be covered, and the films could be shown during TV/cinema ad breaks.
unfortunately the films will NOT be shown during advert breaks in prime time while the usual lowest common denominator soaps/reality crud/quiz/whatever dreck is on. It will be shown on the other channel that no-one is actually watching...
Car insurance is a very competitive market so the price reflects the cost of risk. I will admit to some fairly irresponsible driving when I was a young-un. The fact that I never caused any harm was more by luck than judgement.
More rigorous tests would be a good thing. And retests. And more comprehensive tests for having to drive a big, high vehicle like an SUV.
The greatest problem for new drivers is the extortionate cost of Insurance.
In exchange for successfully completing courses on Rural Road Driving, Night Driving, Motorway Driving, Bad Weather Driving and courses designed to help them understand the perspective of other road users (particularly vulnerable ones) then they should receive a reduction in their insurance premiums.
Sometimes a carrot will work better than the stick. However the stick is now heavier and has a nail in the end - Your fine/suspension/sentence is doubled because you have been on this or that particular course.
As well as greater education of car drives I'm also in favour of good quality compulsory cycle training in schools. (To paraphrase the Jesuits "Give me the boy and I'll give you the man".)
I will now retreat to my bunker.
No, the greatest issue is YOUNG drivers pissing about and having accidents.
I finally learnt to drive at 32 and the insurance wasn't that much. Too many young drivers have accidents and cost insurance businesses money.
Quite right. Society has no need of young drivers, they are more trouble than they are worth. Maybe the driving age should be equalised with the voting age and the drinking age, shall we say 30?
I'm guessing you live in a city with good public transport (or are trolling).
The overwhelming majority of people in this country do live in cities, though (the UK is more than 4/5 urbanised). People living in isolated country areas or small towns are a small minority (and less likely to be young). And it would be possible to make exceptions for such cases.
True, even many urban areas could have better public transport than they do, but if young people couldn't drive, public transport would be more heavily used, hence more viable and have more political support.
And I'm sure there that, at a push, there are also other ways of getting about other than driving or public transport, though I struggle to think of any at the moment.
Not that a driving age of 30 is ever going to happen though, but one can dream.
You say it in jest, but is a 17 year old mentally ready to drive? yes there are old 17 year olds, but some, in fact the majority?
Part of the issue we have is drivers failing to understand that driving is not a right. You hear of the war on drivers, road cameras as a stealth tax, parking fines, HGVs getting in the way etc etc. There is some un-said rule that driving is a right.
Anything that enforces that driving is not a right but a priviledge is a step in the right direction, two part tests, re-tests, harsher fines, etc.
Young drivers have accidents because they have the maximum amount of confidence and the minimum amount of experience. That is why education is so important.
I find that the most dangerous drivers to me as a cyclist are not the young but middle-aged drivers in powerful four-wheel drives and SUV's.
Young drivers do not cost insurance companies money as they reclaim it through the premiums they charge. So yes they do cost us money but nowhere near as much as uninsured drivers do.
As we are now stating when we took our tests; I took mine at 17 in a double plated Class 1 HGV under the Young Drivers Training Scheme. This confuses the hell out of the DVLA as I have a Full Class 1 HGV Licence but have never taken a car test and so have never had a Pass Certificate for a motor car. Those were the days!
I couldn't agree more. Its the ignorant, selfish and aggressive middle age driver in an overpowered rep-mobile who has no patience and 20+/30+ years of bad driving habits that scares me the most.
4 types of vehicles & drivers that worry me the most are
Drivers in (usually) older and/or cars heavily customised & dropped. Old subarus, Corsas & anything small and french. Mad crazy cockwomble who treat every yard of tarmac like a racetrack.
People driving "designer" cars such as Fiat 500, Mini, or new Beetle, especially if the car is brand new & therefore on never-never, or oldest cos driver scraped money together meaning driver wanted "the look" regardless of cost. Usually shallow & vain.
Drivers in vans belonging to small construction or similar manual labour outfits. Vans usually look to be on the brink of imminent MOT fail with windscreens obscured by Daily Star reflections & steam from the bucket of tea. Driver usually on the phone negotiating his next job
Anyone with a private plate. Entitled beyond belief. Think they own the road.
People are not taught how to drive correctly, they are taught how to operate a car & pass a test. Nothing else matters. Nothing about consideration towards others.
not accidents... crashes and collisions...
an accident is when something like an overhanging branch falls down on you... or a sinkhole opens up under you... or a large stone/brick is thrown up by another vehicle and smashes your windscreen...
and with the last one, don't claim the driver was following too close, I had it happen to me when a stone was thrown up by a vehicle coming the other way...