DRIVING 20 PAGES
Better drivers, safer roads
Younger drivers have more crashes than any other age group. Young males are especially prone to crashes.
Seniors over 75 have an increased chance of a crash. Their crashes are generally less severe than the provincial average.
However, there are several instances of problem drivers who are not found in either of those two groups.
Teen drivers in B.C. must clear several hurdles before getting driving privileges. They must pass a theory test with a minimum of 80 per cent and have parental permission.
Despite the high crash rate, there is good news. Teens successfully completing an approved graduated licensing course of 32 hours (20 hours theory and 12 practical) get two high school credits and six months’ relief of the two-year ‘N’ phase. Their crash rate is anywhere from nine to 13 per cent lower than teens not taking the graduated licensing course. They are about 20 per cent more likely to pass the road test the first time and have a reduced blamable crash rate.
Only one in 14 driving schools offer the graduated licensing course, and only one in 13 new drivers complete it. Providing incentives for those enrolled in a GLC would be a great way to increase the participation, which would likely add to the positive results already experienced by those who have gone before. Nonmonetary incentives could include a waiving of the second road-test requirement, which is necessary to end the N phase.
Senior drivers are not the problem in B.C.: They self-regulate. Many do not drive at night or during high traffic volume days and times. They receive a notice to go to their doctor at age 80, while many other provinces have 75 as the cutoff. The doctor is charged with the responsibility to determine if further action is to be taken regarding the senior’s driving privilege.
The best indication of future performance is past performance. Every doctor should be given the driving record of every senior examined. The physical and cognitive data, along with this additional information, could then be compared and referenced, before a final recommendation by the doctor is rendered.
The doctor-appointment cost should be borne by the province. This shotgun approach of calling every senior in to see a doctor is a waste of money for seniors on a fixed income. It is a waste of valuable physician time. There must to be a better way of identifying those seniors who should attend a practical driving re-test, as opposed to notifying an entire generation. Also, the test is too long. If you can test a teen or adult in 45 minutes, seniors should not have to endure a 90-minute appointment.
In-betweens are those drivers between the above two age groups. It is about time the habitual driving offenders in this age group were taken to task. The Superintendent of Motor Vehicles needs more teeth in the legislation that governs driving suspensions and penalties. A very small percentage of drivers are guilty of a great number of serious driving infractions causing death and significant injury.
Fines alone do not dissuade chronic and repeat offenders. Well-off people with poor driving records simply pay the fine and continue down the road of predictable carnage. It is the innocent who pay the real price of injury and death.
Long driving suspensions have had the desired effect in other jurisdictions around the world. It is time the provincial government took a serious look at the very small minority of drivers with multiple infractions, who cause a disproportionately high number of serious crashes. It is time to get those people off the road, before the inevitable happens.
Steve Wallace is the owner of Wallace Driving School on Vancouver Island. He is a former vice-president of the Driving Schools Association of the Americas, a registered B.C. teacher and a University of Manitoba graduate.