What if a driver’s re-test was an actual thing?
It’s been known that habits never go away; they just change. Sometimes, that could be the problem with too many drivers on the road. They often forget what they were originally taught prior to getting their driver’s license. Sometimes the habit changes and they end up doing something risky, illegal or just plain wrong. But how do you keep drivers safe on the roads and refresh their knowledge base at the same time?
Many companies elect to send their drivers to a driver improvement program. I’ve talked about this previously, but is that enough? Those drivers are a very small percentage of all licensed drivers across our land. But I really do believe we need to reach more of the driving population. What if driver re-testing was brought into the fold? How would you feel about it?
I believe many drivers would feel threatened if this happened. But what would cause those feelings? They may feel threatened that they may lose their driver’s license. Fear of being told they are not driving safely enough may also be the case. Or perhaps it’s a fear of someone with authority finding out the truth about their driving. Maybe a truth they had deep down inside their sole. I guess only they would know the truth, but there really are positive results from having driver re-testing every five years or so.
Yes, I’m suggesting it’s every five years. I’m not suggesting it happens on an annual basis. I’m suggesting it happen prior to renewing your driver’s license; often enough to keep you on your toes. Drivers could do the road test a couple months before the renewal so if they do not pass, there is time to re-book another road test but also time to take a few professional lessons to correct their major errors.
Now, before you get all hot and bothered about this, take a deep breath and think about the other positive outcomes. If you find out you were doing something dangerous without realizing it, wouldn’t you want to correct it before you crashed your vehicle and got hurt…or worse? If more people began to drive safer and less collisions happened on the road, would insurance rates drop? If not, perhaps they would no go up as quickly since there would be fewer claims.
I’ve taken out many licensed drivers over the years who either needed a refresher because of a government road test, their company sent them or their family suggested it. Many of those drivers learned or relearned things they were not doing. They often said they never knew them or that they did at the start of their driving career but had forgotten or had gotten lazy.
I know I’m not going to get too many people agreeing with this idea, but there are so many positive outcomes if drivers became less aggressive, stopped speeding, remembered more rules of the road and stopped pretending they know everything about driving. Because if you did, you would have nothing to worry about if you got re-tested behind the wheel.
**Have a quick listen to this short episode of the “Speed Bumps” safe driving podcast as driver’s re-tests is discussed further**
Valid, I’ve heard this said maybe 1,000 times. One problem, what kind of infrastructure is required to support it. At 1 hr per test how does that work. Oh I know let’s give the dishonest driving schools, you know the ones I mean, “Cash is king” ones to do them. Right! That’s giving Colonel Saunders the key to the chicken coup. What we need is stricter laws for bad drivers. The system is regressing not progressing. I know I work in it!
Great idea but it’s a very large commitment to organise. In the UK we have approx. 35 million licence holders (possibly more)…if you do a re-test every 5 years that’s 7m per year or 134,000 per week. Who’s going to do the retest and how much will they be paid? There are around 38,000 driving instructors and far, far fewer driving examiners (around 1600) so approx. 4 retests per week if you use instructors or 80 per week if you use examiners – clearly not enough.
How about starting off with a theory re-test say every 10 years? For those that don’t know the UK theory test is compulsory before taking the driving test and tests understanding of the legal Highway Code which outlines traffic law and good practice. This would get drivers used to being retested and help to keep them up to date with driving law changes at least.
Retesting may help to some extent but many of the “bad behaviors” around distracted driving wouldn’t occur during an exam. Drivers would be on their best behavior, which may vary greatly from how they normally drive.
Many drivers know the rules of the road and how to be courteous to other drivers but choose not to apply that knowledge during their normal course of driving.