Make cycle awareness part of driving test, says top motoring journalist

I hate to say it, but I think that greater use of helmet cams could be part of the solution to poor driver behaviour. I can personally say that I've tried everything I can think of to make a difference to the situation. I tried reporting bad/dangerous driving to the police but have never seen any evidence that this was in any way worthwhile or that any attempt was made to bring the driver to task. Somebody else might be able to comment on the legal particulars but the police seem genearally disinterested unless an actual collision has occoured.

Having given up on that approach I have tried speaking calmly to drivers themselves but I'm not convinced that I'm getting through to them and am conscious of the risk of getting thumpted. At least with video evidence the police might be forced to take some action. I've got a helmet cam on my crimbo list and, if Santa brings it, I will use it in the car too.

The situation can feel a bit desperate as it's increasingly easy to conclude that those in a position to improve the situation on our roads don't have the will or resouce to do so. I wouldn't be surprsed to see cyclists confiscating keys from offending drivers themselves if official enforecement doesn't increase in the near future.

What I struggle to understand is how society just accepts these death and injury rates. I'd say pretty much all of it is avoidable.

For example if for one week all urban traffic was slowed to 20mph and all rural traffic was slowed to 40mph, the only exceptions being roads that can actually handle by design fast moving traffic such as motorways and A roads that would surely be a good starting point to reassess where we are.

I've heard the arguments that speed isn't always the problem, however if anyone is going to get hit would any sane person prefer that to be a high speed impact over the lower?

Quite why an uneven, narrow, twisting and potentially mud and leaf strewn road has a speed limit just 10mph lower than a three or four lane motorway with excellent sight lines, lighting, adhesive road surface, ample drainage runoff and immediate access to emergency services is staggering.

Speed limits are merely excuses for the reckless to try and hide within. Rural roads should simply be blanketed with a national 40mph limit (that drivers will still do 50mph in anyway) simply to protect the vulnerable.

It was very telling to observe the fairly recent attempt by government to increase motorway speed limits. The reason given was more capable cars and better motorway road quality to allow that speed.

In balance however, there was no joined up thinking shown proposing a drop on rural roads given their propensity to generate the highest potential for fatality.

It seems it's all about the speed and perceived convenience and the accepted cost for that is lives.

Just seems to me that those contributing to that quota are not the motorists who berate our presence, but the vulnerable.

Classic case of schoolyard bully, with a headmaster coming out not to chastise the aggressor but to put the boot in and insist nothing is going on...and who'd send their kid to a school like that?!

After all the hubris & examination of late, one is even more convinced that the only thing that will work in the UK is . .
- Enacting a law of Strict Liability

It seems to work in most of Europe. .

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes this needs doing ...

I'd press for compulsory bikeability pass before you start learning to drive. Cycling made me a better driver from a young age, more alert, more careful around others by default.

The notion that losing your licence is practically impossible needs changing too, I believe if you kill or injure to the point that a life is effectively ended you lose your driving entitlement for life.

Harsh? Yes, but so is being killed for the victim and you don't hear them using the 'unfair hardship' excuse do you?

The car you drive in terms of power should be a reflection of your driving history...not an expression of how big daddys wallet is.

Impressionable and inexperienced sixth formers who get to borrow their parents powerful range rover sport (as happened at my school) before causing a major incident on a rural lane involving an elderly couple in their car shouldn't happen...money or access to it does not supersede common sense.

After all, if a lotto winner wrote to British Airways and threw enough money at them would it be sensible for the chief exec to let them fly passengers abroad? Course not, so why would a similar situation on our roads be accepted?

Finally, better use of technology in cars to report and monitor driving behaviour. If the black box in my car shows I think a rural road is my own private race track, that I'm tailgating cars at 90mph on the motorway and generally making the rules up as I go along then my insurers need to know about it...pronto, and automatically adjust my quote accordingly.

We have the ability to monitor cars amongst surroundings already so insurers and government need to quickly explore how tech can not be distractive but instead helpful.

Put learner drivers on bikes as part of learning. Increase the awareness of how to drive in the same environment as other people on bikes. Introduce re-tests every 5 years rather than the current 'once you pass the test you drive forever' systems we currently have. This, along with strict liability, can alter driver attitude. Actually enforcing the rules would have a huge effect too.

The fines are £100 + 3 points where I live. The problem is that our Police are so stretched and now so few in numbers they cannot just get out and about when they see fit in order to enforce traffic law.

If you contrast that with as little as 5 years ago there were always police around my area who would stop on a random road with a speed-gun or watching for phone users or generally bad cars that had dangerous faults and they'd spend an hour or two giving bad drivers fines and points and enforcing traffic law.

That did make a difference in my opinion. Today, with so few Police officers enforcing traffic law, the British driver has become complacent, discourteous, aggressive and at times downright bloody dangerous. The only way to change attitudes is by enforcement and penalties for breaching. Drivers have to be told they are jerks but they all think they are great and safe drivers and own that several feet of road under their car, wherever it may be.

Until enforcement steps up things wont change. The 100 quid fines and penalty points leading to bans actually works and is a good system I beleive, but it needs to be robustly administered. The same also applies to bad cyclists. I had to shout at an idiot cyclist yeserday for mounting the pavement to avoid a red light and who was on a collision course with and elderly lady coming froma behind a bus stop he hadn't seen.

Increasing fines for using a phone to something that hurts like £500 would help. So many lazy drivers with expensive cars with built in Bluetooth hands free that don't use it.

My car is 10 years old but a £50 device works fine. No excuses. 3 pts and £500 - or 6pts and £250. Too many pts already and no local bus? Tough.

The statistics say otherwise about the risk of driving on British roads. Just 1752 people died in road crashes in 2012, compared with 2222 in 2009 for instance. There is a long term downward trend in road fatalities, which are now at about the same level as they were in the late 1940s when there was a mere fraction of the same number of registered vehicles on the road network as we have now.

Yes, distracted driving is a major problem, and increasingly so. And yes the penalties for distracted driving are so low (and rarely enforced) that they are alomost routinely ignored.

Yes there are a lot of aggressive and/or impatient drivers who tailgate and overtake on the inside and display other unacceptable risk taking behaviour.

But look at the fatality rates from the 1970s or early 1980s, when there were fewer motor vehicles on British roads, and realise how far road safety has improved.

Ah, the good old 'raking' plates. The challenge of driving as badly as you can without being caught and having them extended.

One big problem stems from the fact that the main focus of driving lessons is to pass the test, not to create safer drivers. That becomes very clear here in NI-people who have just passed their test have to display "R" plates for a year afterwards (and are limited to 45mph)- the number of R-drivers who suddenly, for example decide they no longer have to use indicators now that they have their license show that the same approach to studying for school exams is followed- do what you have to do to pass then forget about it afterwards.

This is just my long winded way of saying that, rather than concentrate solely on what the test consists of, we need to move beyond the mindset of simply learning to pass the driving test-that however is a long term and difficult process. As in my job, the temptation is to assume that information dissemination is the most effective way simply because it is easy- unfortunately attitudinal and behavioural change require smarter and more long term approaches- simply telling people to give cyclists more room won't work in a lot of cases.

train them all you like, they still be the same sort of drivers as before due to next to no enforcements. need liability laws, bans instead of fines, proper cycling infrastructure & get them to turn off devices when in a car if that distracting!

Changing the driving test this way won't really make much difference, and have zero effect on those who have already passed their test.

After all, how many drivers make an effort to follow the rules of the road after the L-plates are taken off? Far too few. Not the tailgaters, those who cross double white lines or overtake towards oncoming traffic, go through red lights or drive in bus lanes... and that's before we get to the aggression, and the attitude that a cyclist is some kind of rage-inducing obstruction or impediment to them continuing to tailgate the car in front.

I think it's more important to show current and future drivers that they have to take responsibility for their actions. While the legal system hands out meaningless fines for many serious actions that too often cause death or injury and many others go unpunished then nothing will change.