ADUK Archive

I'm waiting for them to make an "appropriate speed" video, showing that journeys can be made with reasonable progress without killing people.

hardboiled wrote:I'm waiting for them to make an "appropriate speed" video, showing that journeys can be made with reasonable progress without killing people.

That's special secret knowledge that they'd never let out.

I think its a cracking advert, it looks real enough to me, apart from the car flipping over....

But this does happen very often, its not such a coincidence that there was a couple there.

Recently we had one where a woman was walking with her family, a motorbike was in a colision and threw the rider off. The bike carried on and hit the family, one of them died in a horrific way.

I do, however, take issue with the comment at the top of the video:
MADE IN MY COUNTRY IRELAND THIS GIVES YOU A BETTER INSIGHT INTO THE PAIN AND MISERY SOME PEOPLE HAVE TO LIVE WITH THANKS TO SPEEDERS AND BOY RACERS

As I have said before its not only speeders and boy racers that cause this type of accident, and being so narrowminded to put this, would make a lot of people think it could never happen to them as they are not 'boy racers'

Shocking as the video is, the effect is temporary and may not reach the target audience (who will probably not be watching TV whilst it's being shown).

The same messages are being shown here in Spain and the young driver death rate is also very high.

Following a related conversation with a colleague here it seems the licensing system is at fault in both countries - and I will draw an analogy with flying.

When learning to fly aircraft, training is done in a machine which is easy to control and forgiving of pilot error. Once qualified with a pilot licence, pilots must move on gradually to more powerful machines.

Yet on the road, too many get their licence and then jump into the equivalent of a F-15 and the inevitable happens.

If extra licensing is required for heavy goods vehicles and for large passenger vehicles, why the hell not for powerful vehicles? Motorcycle licensing is staged (at least in the UK), so what is to prevent staged car licensing?

Maybe when some politician's son or daughter is slaughtered on the road something will be done, but I'm not holding my breath.

I have my Direct Access in June.

I last week rode a bike in a car park for the first time. Next day got my CBT. Next day got my theory. I could have taken my test within a week on a 500CC and if passed, could ride anything.

i.e Anyone can do big bike training (2 days on a 500) via direct access and get a full, derestricted licence within 5 days if they want...

In general I find that the insurance industry does a reasonable job in stopping new drivers from getting in very powerful cars but of course those with plenty of money can still get cover at a cost.

I think that high powered vehicles only exacerbate the natural desire of young/new drivers (particularly men) to over drive. On my local bypass in the last few years there was a young driver of a Porsche GT3 who managed to kill him self and given the 2 huge lampposts he took out he must have been going very quickly. Even without the big power though another young lad managed to crash his Saxo and kill his girlfriend just a short distance down the same road. Even without lots of power you can still cause lots of pain.

James - unless you have previous bike experience (maybe offroad as a kid) then I'd recommend a 4-5day course. You might be able to pass after a couple of days but the extra days do provide a lot of the observed/instructed experience you need to show the examiner you can ride well.