Driver re-testing
I’ve always had a somewhat idealistic view on things like driver retesting. Any skill that is not reinforced can suffer; driving is no exception. So theoretically, it should be a good thing, right?
So when I read (in CBC News:Alberta, Ontario mull retesting all drivers)
bq. Drivers in Alberta and Ontario could soon be forced to take periodic exams to make highways safer, transport ministers in both provinces have said.
bq. Ontario Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar said on Friday that his province would also consider driver testing, if the government sees evidence it would improve highway safety.
My first thought was “and how are they going to manage that?”. When I took my drivers test (only a few years ago) there was a 10 month wait to get a test, at least here in the Greater Toronto Area. Add mandatory retesting and the load on the driver testing system would skyrocket, which means either completely unmanageable delays, or hiring a whole bunch of new examiners.
And where are we going to get the money for _that_?
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Um.. from the money we save by reducing the number of accidents?
Ya, okay, maybe not.
Just go for a cruise in my neighbourhood, you’ll see that the current driver’s test does zilch. Twice zero is still zero. Between the sh33p, the n00bs and the l33ts, it’s pretty hazardous. I’m certain they hate my driving too — damn I stop at nearly all the stop signs and yield to the right [to a certain number of milliseconds]. I must be the only one.
In Mississauga the other day, I found it humorous to see a Jeep driver committing 5 and 6 point infractions blatantly, yet still stopping for red-lights. There are some confused folk out there.
Let me think, how many of these folk are going to do these sorts of things on a driver’s test… hmmm.
I’m one of those obnoxious drivers who doesn’t speed (insanely :), stops for red lights and stop signs, doesn’t enter the intersection when there’s no exit, signals lane changes, and so on. I’m a safety nut in a few different areas of my life. Still, I wonder what blind spots I have about my own driving skills.
Possibly urban legend: some Toronto cops used to carry a card, english on one side, french on the other, that said “I wrote my own driver’s exam”. They’d hand it to people they pulled over and ask them to read it out loud. This was before the law changed to allow you to write the test in any conceivable language…
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