Having just received my copy of ‘Despatch’, the DSA magazine for road safety professionals, where they have printed an update on photocard driving licences, I felt it was important to alert you to the information given there, and so the following information is copied from that article:

Did you know  that all photocard driving licences need to be updated every 10 years?  The photograph on the licence is only valid for 10 years and hence the driving licence needs to be updated accordingly.  This does not mean that drivers need to re-take their driving test.

In order to raise awarenesss, the DVLA will prompt drivers with a reminder that their photo is due to expire.  When a photo on a photocard licence expires, the licence holder must apply to the DVLA and request that their licence is renewed.  The first photographs will expire in July 2008; hence the DVLA will start to issue reminders in May 2008 onwards.

The licence holder must update their licence before their current photo expires.  Failure to do so may result in a fine of up to £1000.

It was revealed tonight, on local television news in East Anglia, that the regions rural roads are the most dangerous in the country, having the highest crash rate with the highest fatalities.  A call has been made for the speed limit on rural roads to be drastically reduced in order to lower these casualty figures. 

We do not believe that this will have the desired effect since policing of it would be almost impossible and it is highly unlikely rural communities will welcome additional roadside ‘furniture’ in the form of speed cameras.  Therefore, the only use speed limits would have would be when apportioning blame, which is exactly what happens now since most of these crashes occur at speeds in excess of the 60mph limit. 

In other words, the current speed limit fails to prevent drivers from driving at much higher speeds than this.  Drivers need to take responsibility for their own actions, and recognise the potential dangers around - it is sheer folly to drive at speed on a single track road around a blind bend!  But this is what happens.  More than a decade of relying on speed cameras to do the work of traffic police has led people to the belief that the speed limit is the ultimate goal - if 60 is the limit, then 60 is safe!  On many stretches of our rural roads it may well be safe, but on many others it is far too high, so drivers need to adjust their speed accordingly.  If we were to try to fix a ’safe’ limit on all 6500 miles of rural roads in Norfolk alone, the countryside would be littered with speed limit signs.  Do we really want that? 

The answer to the problem has to lie in driver education.  If we are to influence a lot of people, there needs to be an advertising campaign, such as those for driving at 30mph, to educate drivers about driving in the countryside.  Perhaps  help could be enlisted from horse-riding groups, cycling clubs, farmers, ramblers, as well as the various motoring groups, to get the message across that the countryside is to be respected, when driving on its roads as well as walking its lanes.  For the unsuspecting, unthinking driver, it’s a very dangerous place!

Please email your comments on this post.

The IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) has called on the government to do more about the carnage on our rural roads, particularly as two thirds of these crashes, too often resulting in death or very serious injury, involve young drivers who, in the words of a spokesperson from the road safety charity Brake, “treat rural roads like personal race tracks”.

Read the full article at the Times Online: http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article2859626.ece

The Metropolitan Police is one of several forces that have decided to investigate company road-safety policies after research by the Health and Safety Executive which shows that 20 people are killed and 250 seriously injured each week in crashes involving someone who was driving for work.

More than half of companies (53 per cent) fail to check that employees using their own cars for work have insured them for business use, according to a survey by the fleet management company Arval. Just over a quarter (26 per cent) ask employees to produce an MoT certificate and an even smaller number (17 per cent) make inquiries about whether private cars used on company business have been maintained regularly.

Superintendent Mark Bird, of the Met’s traffic unit, said: “More and more we carry out follow-up investigations with companies after collisions, to ensure that work-related road safety is embedded within company policies. In the event of a collision or injury, the police take seriously all the reasons that have led to it happening including the condition of the vehicle and why the driver was on the road, including if they were travelling for business reasons.” He said that employers needed to realise that their responsibility for ensuring safety did not end when employees left company premises.

“Just as employers would make sure that employees are safe in the workplace so they should while they are on the road. Businesses must face up to their duty-of-care responsibilities and realise that they are responsible for employees’ welfare when on the road for business purposes, whether they are driving a company car or not.”

Department for Transport figures show that about 300 people are killed each year as a result of drivers falling asleep at the wheel. About 40 per cent of crashes related to tiredness involve someone driving for work. Pacts said companies should be obliged to report any road deaths and injuries involving staff travelling on business. There are about 200 fatal injuries to staff in the workplace each year, compared with an estimated 800-1100 on the road.

Stats:

• There are 3m company cars
• A further 1m private cars are used on company business
• 33% of company cars are involved in a collision each year
• The Health & Safety Executive estimate that £2.7bn is the annual cost to employers of “at-work” crashes
• There are 150 deaths and serious injuries each week in crashes involving someone driving on business

(Source: HSE, Pacts)

Source of article: Advanced Driving UK.  To visit their site  click here:  http://www.advanced-driving.co.uk

 To discuss your company’s needs, call Care Motoring today.

For too long now Government policy has been over-zealous use of speed cameras, catching many drivers whose speed had inadvertantly slipped above the limit because their concentration was given to prevailing traffic conditions as opposed to the accuracy of their compliance with the speed limit.  We have no problem with drivers who are travelling at a reckless speed being caught by a speed camera and fined, but we do object to so many careful drivers finding themselves criminalised through a minor infringement.  We should return to proper traffic policing, catching the true criminals, those who drive recklessly and irresponsibly, showing no thought for anybody else on the road.  These are the drivers we want to see targeted, and it looks like the tide is beginning to turn in our favour.  Click on the link below to read The Times article on this subject:

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article2781340.ece

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_5360000/newsid_5363000?redirect=5363072.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&bbram=1

The link above will take you to a BBC recording by the mother of a young woman whose life was cut short by a young driver who had been drinking before getting behind the wheel of his car.  This is a very moving account and may be upsetting to some.  We have included it here as we would like every driver, not just the young, to be aware of the devastating effects irresponsible behaviour can have on the lives of so many people, not just that of the person who loses their life at the hands of such a driver.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_5360000/newsid_5364000?redirect=5364004.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1 

Click the link above to view a BBC news video concerning the topic of learner drivers needing ‘a year of lessons’. Comments welcome so please do email us your thoughts.

There is an interesting debate taking place, arising out of this recent incident, regarding what constitutes speeding: exceeding a legally defined limit or driving at a speed which is unsafe for the prevailing conditions?  Many of us in road safety believe over-zealous insistence on the former has led drivers to become incompetent with regards to the latter, failing to adjust their speed appropriately when within the legal limit. (See our news item on rural driving). If this topic interests you, you may be interested in joining the Yahoo Group, SafeSpeed; to read comments from Paul Smith of SafeSpeed, and to join this group, click on the link below:

 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/

Or visit the SafeSpeed site at www.safespeed.org.uk

Care Motoring is pleased to announce that we have been invited to take part in a national campaign, launched just a few weeks ago by the Driver Education and Research Foundation (derf), to encourage young novice drivers, as well as learner drivers, to take part in the Defensive Drivers’ Promise initiative by agreeing to take extra training post-test in defensive driving techniques.  Here at Caremotoring, that is exactly what we do - our e-learning programme will be focussing exclusively on these techniques, the essential driver thinking skills, so that our learners are given an understanding of what is meant by defensive driving before they pass their test.  In this way the progression to the Defensive Drivers’ Promise post-test will seem a natural one.  Linked to this, we will be offering  Diamond Plus, based on a combination of Pass Plus and the Diamond Advanced Motorist Test, administered by the Driving Instructors Association (DIA).  For more details please fill in the contact form or use the contact details given on the contact page.

For more information on the Defensive Drivers’ Promise campaign, vist www.derf.org.uk