Letter: Bad drivers

Sir: Phil Sparks is quite right about the need for higher driving standards (letter, 7 October). Almost nobody drives as if they were doing what they actually are, which is taking part in a collective exercise in transportation. Driving education and testing should include the ability to co-operate in forming steady traffic flows, avoiding overtaking, giving way to vehicles entering from side roads, and so on.

Education and testing should continue throughout a driver's career. A test that not only had to be retaken every few years, but was graded in percentage points, would encourage drivers to keep improving their personal standard. In the early years a requirement that there should be an improvement in score between the initial test and second test would impose the need for young drivers to be aware of their limitations, in the knowledge that if they did not correct them, they would have to revert to a provisional licence.

There are obstacles to a rational driving test policy. One is the perception in the Government that wilfully bad drivers will all vote against it in the next election if they are clamped down. The other, I suspect, is that too many MPs are themselves wilfully bad drivers.

C PADLEY

Market Rasen, Lincolnshire