I think it’s all too easy to blame youngsters for today’s driving problems when let’s face it they are virtually priced off the road anyway (with good reason.) at 17 I paid £3200 to insure a 1.2 clio and I hear it’s gone up since then too.
I’d say the Audi/bmw brigade or school run mums cause far more issues for me on a day to day basis IMO.
The issue switchlogic raised about poor motorway driving isn’t the lack of people training with qualified instructors, as I believe most people do for their test, it is the fact that people aren’t required to do any training on a motorway at all.
Having passed your driving test you should have a restriction on it prohibiting you from using motorways, then there should be a separate test for motorway driving. That way not only are people actually being tested on their motorway skills & confidence, there would be a means of removing someones motorway privileges should they in future be deemed unsafe.
However, lets face it, the old dear doing 50mph in lane 1 is ultimately not the one causing the accident - it’s the muppets tailgating, not forward planning and going too fast for the circumstances (& that often includes truck drivers, presumably the most qualified on the road with usually 3 passed driving tests under their belt).
Most lorry drivers have had to pass a UK car test, followed by ‘professional’ training to acquire their hgv licenses, which includes a relatively tough test. For those taken in the last few years that also includes a hazard perception test and graduated ascension to class one via rigids first.
Despite all this advanced training, you still have ‘professional’ drivers slamming into bridges, shedding their load over roundabouts, whacking decks and roller shutter doors, changing the lean angle of lamposts and other street furniture, ploughing into lines of stationary traffic etc etc. The ‘professional’ drivers that pull into the middle lane of a motorway as an incline approaches and then form a rolling roadblock for several miles because they are either too stupid or too selfish to pull back in to let other traffic past. The list is endless but what makes it worse when ‘professional’ drivers are involved, is that they have had to demonstrate a much higher level of driving skill (well on the test day at least).
There are some excellent truck and bus drivers, ditto car drivers, motorcyclists and cyclists. The level of training is irrelevant, as some road users seem to live in a semi comatosed state nowadays… 
DrivingMissDaisy:
Professional instructors don’t seem to have had much impact on the standard of lorry driving.
+1
I do not think the main problem is bad driving but bad thinking and attitude
Truckyboy i cant remember having to go car…3,2,1.i know they have tae now.But i knew boys post 69 that went from farm tractor licence to class1,and motorbike straight tae a class2.
dont mean tae cause an argument 
just tae let you all know in Manitoba …schoolkids do drivers ED at 15.5yrs with a wee test with a driving instructor ,then 9months driving with a licence holder alongside (learner stage)must keep a log of hours driven …then full driving test …then 15months (intermediate stage)no driving at night ,limited amount o folk in car(for 9 months). then 6 months later no restrictions …
class1 at 18 but not allowed in USA until 21.
truckyboy:
Truck drivers used to have a graduated training, from a car licence you couldnt go to a class 1 licence, it had to be a 3.2.1. or something on those lines.
I don’t know when that was then, like many other drivers, in the early 70s I went straight from a car licence to class 1 
make everyone resit there tests every 10 years
Yeah Jim, it was like that for a few years way back when, personally i never had to take a HGV test as i got mine through grandfather rights, ie i was driving them when they introduced the HGV licence ( the little black book, well brown first i think ) but the 3.2.1. i believe was phased out, and now its back, but someone on here will enlighten us. I still hold my HGV and still drive them even though i am 105…only kidding, officially retired, but earning some money to keep warm 
tachograph:
I don’t know when that was then, like many other drivers, in the early 70s I went straight from a car licence to class 1
Me too but in 1988 when I was age 30
Funny that was just thinking o my first book type licence it was brown ,everyone elses at work was black… i mind the office phoning up to see why my licence was brown!. .The auld boys i drove with at first told me they all had to go and do the test at the start o the 70s as it seems they all put in for grandfather rights ,ended up wi twice as many drivers as wagons and the licence folk woudnt let it through.
My dad told me he never passed a test!! something about petrol rationing in the mid 50s,and if you had a learners you got your licence!
Tipper Tom:
There are far too many bloody idiots at 18 and 19 getting licences and driving like loons.
yes and if you raise the age they can obtain a license to 21 you’ll see far too many 21 year olds driving like loons.
I’m not convinced of that. A 21 year is generally more sensible than a 18 year old in my experience
truckyboy:
Truck drivers used to have a graduated training, from a car licence you couldnt go to a class 1 licence, it had to be a 3.2.1. or something on those lines.
i’m afraid you’re wrong-you used to be able to go straight in and do your class one…
Bugs me the amount of solo Learner cars (so obviously an instructor between calls) weavin’ and a-wanderin’ all over the place, mobile in hand, merrily texting away, totally oblivious to the world around them.
I think the age thing is irrelevant. Might be different for me, as back in my day, I was into bikes, and preferred having a nice bike to some scrapper of a motor. So when I drove cars, they were usually boring family vehicles, when I hit 21+, I could buy quicker stuff, bigger stuff etc, was certainly less safe than I had been at 17.
Training doesn’t just needs changing, but the examiners that undertake the tests need to be more qualified…
I question how many examiners have years of experience of driving trucks under there belt…
But on a who I don’t think enough is done even to drive a car, I would like to see more ppl having to get mopeds and bikes before being allowed behind the wheel of a car, then there’ll have a better understanding
rob22888:
However, lets face it, the old dear doing 50mph in lane 1 is ultimately not the one causing the accident - it’s the muppets tailgating, not forward planning and going too fast for the circumstances (& that often includes truck drivers, presumably the most qualified on the road with usually 3 passed driving tests under their belt).
You’ll find the incompetent driver holding everyone up is the root cause of the incident, because he/she is driving too slow for the road conditions leading other drivers into frustration and causing tailgating and other undesirable behavior, had the incompetent person not been there or doing a sensible speed, no drivers would get frustrated therefore the chances of any of them doing something stupid is greatly reduced.
You’d think it would be the fault of the person driving too fast/too close and having a crash, and you’d be right!
But generally speaking drivers don’t have any desire to stuff their bike/car/truck into another vehicle or anything else for that matter!
So you’ve got to ask why was the driver doing this in the first place?
Maybe the boss/planner had put pressure on the driver to make it to the destination in an unreasonable time?
Running low on hours?
Tired?
Road rage?
Distracted?
Was the driver was stuck behind a very slow driver for miles with no chance to overtake becoming distracted by frustration?
The list is endless.
By understanding human factors involved in incidents you can learn a valuable lesson and avoid having a crash.
No periodical medicals just a self assessment form! That’s just asking for trouble! because who in their right mind will tell the dvla about their medical conditions and ability to drive because the only thing they will get for their honesty is their license revoked!
Tipper Tom:
I’m not convinced of that. A 21 year is generally more sensible than a 18 year old in my experience
Raising the age to 21 would hurt too many people. Not everyone goes to uni and can walk or bus everywhere till they are 21. Some leave school to work, often unusual hours, and how do you think that would affect rural areas such as where I grew up. I would have had to get a taxi to work for three years.
I’d have had to walk for 6 years I grew up in the middle of no where and started full time work at 15 on a dairy farm.
I honestly believe accidents would be reduced if the unrestricted driving age was increased