Ban P Platers over Easter

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by sudszy

It appears that you have just seized on this as an opportunity for a put down,

Sudszy, do the words Pot, Kettle and Black mean anything to you?

You've been a member here for almost 4 months.
In that time you've never started a thread.
You have however managed to argue that your ideas are the right ones on almost every thread you've joined.
You have never told us what type of car you have, (Do you own a car...do you own a Ford?) your age or driving experience. Or where this wealth of knowledge you seem to possess comes from.

I don't really expect an answer to any of these questions as I believe they've been asked, and subsequently ignored, before.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by AWD Chaser

Nice work, thanks.

Yes the P plate range is the highest but there are some other star performers, would they get banned from driving too?

[Scott]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Good point, the age break up makes it a bit tricky to work out. Average it for deaths per year and 17-25 works out to 2.5 deaths per year (8 years) of the age range, the 40-49 age group (10 years) equals 1.5 deaths per year of the age group. Not really the spectacular difference that would justify the older age group deciding the younger drivers are dangerous and should be banned from driving at certain times.

Not trying to be picky, but 17-25 is 9 years, not 8. What I read in the numbers is that 17-29yo are grossly over represented in not only deaths straight up, but deaths by population.

Less than a fifth of the population are close to a third of the dead.

[Rodp]

Originally Posted by AWD Chaser

What do those figures actually represent? Do pedestrians count in those figures? Is it simply the age of the driver at fault? Ages of all the occupants that perished in a motor vehicle accident?

For instance, a 30 year old could survive a crash in which they were the driver in a single car accident where his 60 year old mother was killed. Add one to the 60-69 box.

I would also consider that a 20 year old could probably endure more trauma and survive an accident that perhaps someone in the 50+ range would not.

I'd prefer to see figures that break down ages of at fault drivers. This is a small sample size and doesn't actually appear to measure anything other than ages of people involved in a fatality which wasn't necessarily the driver.

[Mesa]

The Rail and Bus Union??? Bwahahahaha!!! Who were the 58% surveyed and where?? Having worked in the long distance coach industry for a a number of years I can guarentee there are a few in their ranks who's 'skill' leaves a lot to be desired.....
This almost reads a justification for insurance companies to jack up the cost of a policy on young drivers. I'm surprised the NRMA didn't think it was a good idea.
And the dumbest idea to protect the young driver was to restrict learners to an 80kph and red platers to 90kph on freeways, 20-30 kph under the prescribed speed limit.

[AWD Chaser]

See next post

[AWD Chaser]

Originally Posted by Rodp

What do those figures actually represent? Do pedestrians count in those figures? Is it simply the age of the driver at fault? Ages of all the occupants that perished in a motor vehicle accident?

I'd prefer to see figures that break down ages of at fault drivers. This is a small sample size and doesn't actually appear to measure anything other than ages of people involved in a fatality which wasn't necessarily the driver.

Cant get a break down of at fault drivers, but take a look at the age breakdown of driver fatalities:

What this shows is you can get stats to show or manipulate your argument eg: Old people (70+) have a high death rate, however, when you look at another set of stats, the older people that die in a car accident are not nessecarily the driver...

[Rodp]

Originally Posted by AWD Chaser

Cant get a break down of at fault drivers, but take a look at the age breakdown of driver fatalities:

What this shows is you can get stats to show or manipulate your argument eg: Old people (70+) have a high death rate, however, when you look at another set of stats, the older people that die in a car accident are not nessecarily the driver...

That was my point. If we're going to look at age statistics, we should be focusing on the age of the driver. Sadly, it's not further broken down into the age of the at fault driver where it would bare out the most important crash statistics.

For instance, a 60 year old driver celebrating a lawn bowls win has a few too many beers. Bunch of innocent kids on their way out to a club on a Saturday night enters an intersection on a green and is t-boned by said sleeping and drunken 60 year old driver. The impact sends the teen's vehicle into a traffic light, all occupants killed. 60 year old survives. Statistics skewed.

[BIGJB]

Originally Posted by flappist

I totally agree with not allowing inexperienced lowly skilled drivers on the roads at Easter.

Unfortunately the MAJORITY of inexperienced lowly skilled drivers are those of ALL ages and licensing durations who live in a city, usually take public transport to work and only ever drive to drop the kids off at school, down to the local shops, once a week to the golf club and once or twice a year for a distance of more than 50km.

THEY are the dangerous ones but the problem is THEY don't know it and would not accept it even if they did.

100% correct Flap.

I left the Gold Coast on Thursday morning drove to Mackay stopping overnight at Rockhampton
arriving back home today after a stop over at Hervey Bay last night.

Where do I start with the crap i have seen drivers pull in the last few days.
People towing caravans with 4-5klms of traffic cued behind them only to get around it 35mins later
(the whole time doing 20klm under the speed limit), only to discover that it didn't have towing mirrors.
People overtaking me at least 40klms over the limit, I reckon at least 50% of the cars were grossly over load.

The list goes on and on.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

So clearly you are suggesting you can teach a 12 year old to safely drive a car in heavy traffic, because a 12 year old can be taught to ride a bike in those circumstances and it does not require a 100 hrs of logged instruction

Sorry, clearly you are making up strawmen, I wouldnt be letting any 12 year old of mine ride a pushy in heavy traffic(whether they were a bmx champion, whatever), they dont have the maturity or development of peripheral vision or indeed fully hardened skull!.

Driving a car or a bicycle are not mutually exclusive skill sets when you look at negotiating heavy traffic.

If you let us know though what special skills are required to drive a car in heavy traffic that would need extra time to those needed to ride a pushy , Im all ears.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by sudszy

Sorry, clearly you are making up strawmen, I wouldnt be letting any 12 year old of mine ride a pushy in heavy traffic(whether they were a bmx champion, whatever), they dont have the maturity or development of peripheral vision or indeed fully hardened skull!.

Driving a car or a bicycle are not mutually exclusive skill sets when you look at negotiating heavy traffic.

If you let us know though what special skills are required to drive a car in heavy traffic that would need extra time to those needed to ride a pushy , Im all ears.

Clearly you have the time to be pedantic and twist other people's words but not time to answer post 91.

[ray38l]

Ban all drivers from capital/major cities from driving on the highways over Easter and you will see the road toll drop.
These people drive everyday to work averaging probably less then 30km/h and then try do a 12 hour drive at 110km/h. I see them every holiday period. They are the ones that that sit 10 under the speed limit in a single lane then speed when there is overtaking lanes. My mates and i have a theory on why they do this. They are not used to doing such high speeds in a single lane so get scared. Then when there is 2 lanes they feel more confident and speed up. This type of driving annoys everyone else to the point that they take risks to get away from those drivers.
Alot of people probably won't like that option so to find some middle ground perhaps city drivers should have to display a "c" plate so us country drivers can identify these drivers and drive with caution around them. Btw im not on my p's so any ban wouldn't affect me.

[hendoau99]

im a green p plater and drive 90 minutes of country roads everyday for work school and tafe, does this make me a bad driver? well by the surveys and what 58% of australia think, yes it does. i think to ban any p plater for one day is a completely idiotic decision and if the majority of roads were fixed and properly maintained the accident/deathrate would be significantly reduced.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by sudszy

Sorry, clearly you are making up strawmen, I wouldnt be letting any 12 year old of mine ride a pushy in heavy traffic(whether they were a bmx champion, whatever), they dont have the maturity or development of peripheral vision or indeed fully hardened skull!.

Driving a car or a bicycle are not mutually exclusive skill sets when you look at negotiating heavy traffic.

If you let us know though what special skills are required to drive a car in heavy traffic that would need extra time to those needed to ride a pushy , Im all ears.

You and your "strawmen", do you have any other phrases?
Couple of things.
Firstly it was not me that said driving a car was easier than riding a bike, that was your suggestion so now you are contradicting yourself. My comment was that driving a car is more difficult.
Secondly a 12 year old is anatomically classed as an adult (not in mental maturity though) so there us little difference in skull strength or peripheral vision. Not that I am surprised you don't know that though, you do believe that you can accurately read print using peripheral vision which is an anatomical impossibility.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by Rodp

That was my point. If we're going to look at age statistics, we should be focusing on the age of the driver. Sadly, it's not further broken down into the age of the at fault driver where it would bare out the most important crash statistics.

While that may well be true for a relatively small sample, the 23 years worth of Victorian data we were looking at recently in another thread should smooth out the bulk of those imbalances.

The two charts below take a look at driver statistics only for both deaths and serious injuries across the 23 years. For smoothing purposes population has been taken at the mean of the 23 years.

Fatals


In both charts the blue line should (ideally) be close to even with the red line and preferably below it which indicates that the age group is under represented in percentage terms.

Naturally the 0-16 age group is well under - they represent a mean of almost 24% of the population but only 0.34% of driver deaths although (sadly) 12 of those were under 15.

Whatever way you look at it the 17-25 age group figures heavily - they make up a mean of just under 13% of the population but almost 31% of the driver road deaths.

The 26-39 age group is also slightly over-represented; 21.8% of the population and 27.2% of driver deaths. The 60-70 age group is likewise over-represented.

Serious Injury


A similar looking graph.

Does this mean they should be banned?

No - but a part of the price we will continue to pay for that freedom is that (in an average year) two 15-16 year olds; twenty-five 18-21 year olds and nineteen 22-25 year olds won't be returning to their families alive.

Russ

[93EB_SXR6]

I'm no longer on the "P" plates, I am now "P2" (which in S.A. means that all of the regular P plate rules apply but I don't need to display plates).
*Not having to display plates is great for when I jump in mum's or my sister's car*

On Saturday night, my brother and his girlfriend wanted to go to the Edithburgh pub (about 20-30 minutes drive along a dodgy dirt road from our holiday place), I offered to drive them because I'm a non-drinker and they'd had both had plenty to drink.
If I had not been allowed to drive them there, he would have taken his ute and probably been in a crash - on a road that is rarely frequented.
I don't drive like an idiot, I know I still have a lot to learn, I drive safely.
My brother told me on the way that I was going "too slow" because I was going between on 80km/h on the straights to 60km/h on the Edithburgh - Pt. Moorowie road (anyone from the area would know its pretty dodgy).
He went on to tell me that he sat on 100km/h the whole way the day before... in a ute.

I used to get a lot of dirty looks when I had the P plates. This could be because I had a louder-than-stock exhaust, but I never chucked a burnout or anything like that.
I think its the attitude of fully licensed drivers that should come under scrutiny.
My brother is NOT an awesome driver, he WOULD HAVE driven if I couldn't.
They probably would have crashed.

Ban P platers that own cars with stockies on the back and big wheels on the front from driving on long weekends if you must blame anyone.

[93EB_SXR6]

*I should point out the road is only dodgy on the bends and T intersections*

[XR6Noir]

Originally Posted by sudszy

Sorry, I be 12 year old (bmx champion), dont have maturity or vision.

not skill at negotiating.

If you drive car, Im all ears.

Fixed?

[Xtreme PaintworX]

This is getting rediculous, yes i am a p plate but i mean if some absolute nitwit to put it nicely decides to rap himself around a pole fine but how rediculous of a world do we live in, its not just a "p platers" that larize or to put it simply just do what you guys all did when you were 18 as long as were out of the way it shouldnt be an issue, i was gunna go out to powercruise back eariler this year to let it loose without having to watch around my back!! but no you have to weight till your atleast 18 i mean they keep saying "take it off the street" Seriously??? and go were?? thats about somes it up i think

[Ben73]

Love the term strawman. No one ever used the term but then someone learnt it and now uses it everyday to sound smart. Lol.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Clearly you have the time to be pedantic and twist other people's words but not time to answer post 91.

Pointing out where people use dodgy logic and keep presenting strawmen in response is not twisting words, and sorry, but I certainly aren't going to answer every question people might throw up here and certainly not of a personal nature.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Firstly it was not me that said driving a car was easier than riding a bike, that was your suggestion so now you are contradicting yourself..

How so?

Well so far nothing from you to support why I could be wrong, you are a bike rider? do you remember how long it took you to be able to ride the thing in a straight line at any speed, go around corners slowly, fast , over bumps etc, thats the skill Im talking about in riding a bike, the skill that basically deserts people over 80, but for the rest of the population is something once learnt is retained.

Learning to drive a car in comparison, how much special skill does it require? , not really much in steering, stopping and going that most people get the hang of quickly in the dogems at the fair ground.

Yep there are all the other skills of driving in traffic, some similar for both, some different, but none really more demanding than the other.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by sudszy

How so?

Well so far nothing from you to support why I could be wrong, you are a bike rider? do you remember how long it took you to be able to ride the thing in a straight line at any speed, go around corners slowly, fast , over bumps etc, thats the skill Im talking about in riding a bike, the skill that basically deserts people over 80, but for the rest of the population is something once learnt is retained.

Learning to drive a car in comparison, how much special skill does it require? , not really much in steering, stopping and going that most people get the hang of quickly in the dogems at the fair ground.

Yep there are all the other skills of driving in traffic, some similar for both, some different, but none really more demanding than the other.

To learn to ride a bike was a couple of days until I was riding by myself in a straight line at reasonable speed, my daughter was the same, so was my sister. Perhaps we are a gifted family. Yes it was longer than a few days until I felt safe to ride on roads but I was a lot younger than someone learning to drive. I have no doubt I could get a complete novice from not being able to ride upright to riding safely on the road within a week. To drive a car was longer to be able to balance the clutch, change gears, learn throttle control, effectively brake smoothly, learn emergency braking and steering around obstacles etc. Also what is your fascination with 80 year olds riding bikes? Yes the majority of cyclist hang up their bikes by 80, as the majority of drivers hand in their license by 80, the ratio is probably the same. By the way, in the 2003 Australian Ironman Triathlon the oldest competitor and finisher was from memory 83, he even beat a few people 1/3 his age to the finish.

Think of it this way, a car is more difficult to control in traffic for the following reasons.
1) It is much larger in physical dimensions and therefore takes more adaptation in terms of spacial awareness.
2) A car has a greater stopping distance.
3) A car involves a higher traveling speed in the majority of circumstances.
4) A car has a greater number of blindspots.
5) A car has more complex vehicle controls.
6) A car is much less maneuverable.

I am sure there are more if I really put my mind to it but I have just finished a 13 hour nightshift and I can not be bothered on a line of discussion that is so far OT.

For once in your short time here, admit you made a silly comment and that you have been proved wrong. The largest perpetrator of "dodgy logic" that I see here is you, you may not realise it but I assure you many others here do.

Now for the sake of the thread, how about you drop it? I am done on this line of discussion, if you have any further to add please pm me.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by sudszy

Pointing out where people use dodgy logic and keep presenting strawmen in response is not twisting words, and sorry, but I certainly aren't going to answer every question people might throw up here and certainly not of a personal nature.

Please stop with the Strawman analogy, you're not in the school debating team now.....or are you?


And I certainly would not consider this to be a 'personal' question

Originally Posted by GasOLane

You have never told us what type of car you have, (Do you own a car...do you own a Ford?) your age or driving experience. Or where this wealth of knowledge you seem to possess comes from.

[Zero_PSI]

When i was heading from adelaide to mildura and back this long weekend i was shocked at the patience of the 5 or 6 P platers i came across. Not 1 overtook unless it was completly safe and only one car at a time. While the countless stupid stunts i did see looked to be aged between 30 and 60.

[SEZ213]

I did hear something interesting on my way home from Maryborough yesterday, a woman noticed that in a multi vehicle accident - 3 of the vehicles were P platers...(two green, one red). I'm not saying they should be banned...just an observation.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by Sezzy

I did hear something interesting on my way home from Maryborough yesterday, a woman noticed that in a multi vehicle accident - 3 of the vehicles were P platers...(two green, one red). I'm not saying they should be banned...just an observation.

Guess what. I have seen multi vehicle accidents with only women drivers.

Just saying.....

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Also what is your fascination with 80 year olds riding bikes?

Really the point was made quite clear, most would not have the co-ordination/balance/skills to be able to ride a bike safely in traffic...or even at all. Whereas most of them retain enough of all the skills needed to drive a car.....do I need to go on?

Originally Posted by geckoGT

as the majority of drivers hand in their license by 80, the ratio is probably the same. .

Hmm, anything to support that, go down to your local bowls,rsl, clubs and do yourself a survey, you have to be kidding!

[mcnews]

Must be hard being a young revhead these days. If the laws around today were around when I was 17, I would probably still be not allowed a licence, some 20 years later

[russellw]

Interestingly, statistics are only kept nationally for the 70+ group so it is hard to know at what age most people choose (or are forced) to surrender them.

What we can say is that as a percentage of the eligible licence holders it is the lowest age group with 61% holding a current licence - slightly less than the under 20 age group which is 63% and well below the 94.5% of the 40-49 age group.

Interestingly, despite their higher life expectancy, only 50% women over the age of 70 still hold a valid licence.

Source: Ausroads 2005 Annual Report (data from 2003).