£7 billion to tackle congestion
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3053031.stm

Its a lost cause. No matter how many roads we try and build we'll always fall short of demand. Congestion can be sorted in one simple and easy way. Re-test drivers. There are so many people on our roads that are a danger to themselves and others. Get rid of them and at the same time make a real dent in congestion.

Every 5 years re-test people. Make the test more rigourous as their level of experience increases. The test as it stands at the moment is still far too easy. I passed my test 1st time and although I was reasonably competent at doing the manouvres I had no idea how to really drive and survive on the road, There are people on our roads who have been driving for 50 years without any check on their standards.

Now the downsides to re-testing. Well it will increase the workload for the examiners and instructors. But with measures put in place well in advance this downside can be turned into a positive by creating a helluva lot of jobs.

Another downside is less cars will be sold, less insurance will be sold, less road tax, less fuel. So those of us who do drive could be paying abit more because we'll not get as much economy of scale as we do now. Cars shouldn't really cost much more really though since demand for them across europe won't change a whole lot. Having less dangerous drivers on the road would you'd think reduce insurance premiums and if the roads are recieving less traffic you'd think road tax wouldn't neccessarily rise by a massive amount.

The upsides ? Well less dangerous drivers on our roads, massive employment for driving schools, less congestion, less accidents and the knowledge that those who have the privilege of driving on our roads have that privilege because of their ability to drive safely.

I think people in rural areas wouldn't be too happy...

Why though ? all you're doing is re-testing people every 5 years to make sure they are still competent enough to drive. If they fail they shouldn't be driving in the first place and can have no complaint. You'd have to say give people 6 months to resit the test if they failed it before you took their license off them.

You aren't denying anyone the right to drive, you are just making it harder for people who are unsafe on the roads to get away with being a danger to themselves and others. Surely you couldn't argue, okay I'm a terible driver and a real danger to the public but I live in the country where there are no buses so you have to exempt me.

Yes,

but the goverment already gets £38 billion from us car drivers every year anyway. It they'd been keeping the roads upto date in the first place we wouldn't be in this mess now!

No, I guess not, but I do think it would cost a lot of money to people who are good drivers, and you may deprive people of their car who may not be very good drivers, but only drive on quiet roads to get their shopping occasionally when there is hardly any traffic about.

How about retesting people that have been involved in accidents?

People who speed and end up crashing always seem to say they were driving on quiet roads with hardly any other traffic around - they still kill people though :shrug:

Yep sounds good to me. The main thing is to reduce congestion. The current thinking is by making us all pay tolls to enter cities. That will probably work, something which is fine for rich people but will impact on the poorer. Some could argue thats fine. Personally I would rather poor safe drivers on the road than rich crap ones. I think the best way to decide who should be on the road is by their ability to actually drive, not by how much money they have.

Building more roads will never work either, because you can't build more roads in cities where all the traffic is heading. By building bigger motorways you are just moving the trafic jam closer to the city. They need to stop people using their cars, thats the bottom line. What the government want us to do is still buy the car, still insure it, still pay tax, but then never use it. My proposition is that we reduce the number of people who use cars by removing those who are a danger to others and the side affect will be a reduction of accidents on our roads.

Let's give some people the benefit of the doubt. And if you were to retest people involved in accidents, you might get some of these loonies off the road.

I like that thought...

Thought folk might have more views on this really, maybe I just posted it at a bad time. ie when folk aren't at work and looking for an excuse to skive :)

If I get a bit lazy, the bin in my kitchen gets a bit full. Going on this new idea, the way to tackle the problem is to use a bigger bin.....which I will then fill up when I'm feeling lazy....

Hell yeah lets widen the M25, make the 80mph carpark/traffic jam even bigger.

I did also notice that they mentioned widening the A19 in teesside, Now even at the busiest times this road runs perfectly smoothly until some idiot stuffs their car in the ar*e end of the one in front. Then the idiotic rubberneckers balls everything up on the opposite carraigeway.
I dont really see the need to widen the roads, what should be done is finnish ALL roadworks, and only allow work to be carried out at night on the motorways.

How about restricting heavy goods vehicles to night time road use only, That would cut a lot of the peak traffic down.

Educate people on proper motorway driving so that they don't hog the middle lane and thereby cut a 3 lane road down to 2 lane road- that would effectively add another lane to all our motorways-without widening them!

Strictly enforce peak time speed limits (lower ones) to lessen erratic driving (which causes sudden breaking) and hence make traffic flow more smoothly.

My strategy for dealing with the M1 when it's heavy going...

Get in Lane 1 (it's not the slow lane!!), go at 60-65mph and stay there. You can usually undertake a couple of dozen lane-hogging idiots in lanes 2 and 3 before coming up behind a lorry, at which point you slip into lane 2 and then straight back to lane 1.

As long as you're going under 70, and the traffic is very heavy, by my reading of the Highway Code you are 'moving in queues' and therefore not breaking any rules by passing cars on the inside.

Works for me anyway!

To answer someone else's suggestion earlier, I think rotten lane discipline is one of the biggest arguments in favour of re-testing people, or at least introducing a second-stage test, involving m-way driving, before allowing people to drive on the m-ways.

Thats what I do but I think it is illegal:( unless you are passing a 'convoy'. It would be interesting to see it argued in court (I'm not volunteering:D )