Drivers not able to drive properly

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Visibility very poor here today due to fog and clowns not driving with any lights on. I'd hand out 12 points before lunchtime if I were in Garda Traffic.

It comes off at the wrong time, skulling a cyclist or pedestrian, or blocking vision for you or another driver.

Gotcha, have never seen that happen.

Driving with frozen or snow covered windows is certainly stupid though.

Isn't it very different depending on circumstances?

One person might be very competent driver with advanced vehicle control skill being able to recover vehicle from nearly any kind of random skid that might occur, and driving a car on good winter tyres.

Other person might be clueless what to do in case of skid, and not even aware of dangers or how slippery it is. Driving on summer tyres.

First one, can probably do 80km/h on the same road perfectly safely, while other one will cause danger at 20km/h.

I was behind a car today on a country road that was attempting to overtake a tractor and trailer.

The driver persisted in keeping as close as possible to the trailer and every now and then moving out to the right to try and see if the road was clear to overtake. Due to the angle being so close they needed to move significantly out to get a view of the road, and twice had to pull back in quickly as a car approached from the other side. It was brain dead driving.

When they eventually got past i started my overtaking manouver way behind giving me a better view and loads of time to see if anything was coming and cuised past without any hassle.

Indeed. AGS probably clueless to the danger of it too.

It has to happen. The snow has to come off somewhere, the only question is where and when, and will you lucky enough to avoid taking someone out with it. There should be no piled snow on the roof or bonnet before you take off.

A competent driver is not one that can recover from a skid, it's one that knows how to avoid it happening in the first place. What happens when a skilled driver is doing 80kph and hits black ice when they brake to avoid a pedestrian on the road? Will their skills help them overcome the laws of physics?

I think this will only get worse as more technology is added to cars. As cars are getting more powerful and more driver aids are added to compensate, drivers themselves are increasingly isolated from the complexities of driving and are therefore losing the basic skills required to keep a car on the road, particularly in difficult driving conditions. The way things are going, fully automated cars may be a necessity rather than a luxury sooner than we think.

The joys of actually driving a decent manual sporty car on a public road will soon be consigned to folklore or the track

True, but pretty much every recent car, even manual shift sports cars will have lots of safety features such as ESP, stability control, ABS etc. so even then you can do daft things like braking mid corner and nothing particularly bad will happen most times. Try that in a 1964 Ford Anglia, which is what I learnt to drive in, and you'd end up in the ditch. Talk to a lot of people now about slowing before you get into a corner and accelerating out of it when you get to the apex, and they look at you as if you have two heads.

I agree and that's the point. All these new driver aids allow you to drive faster and more carelessly as you become accustomed to the aids kicking in to save your rear end when you over do it. So everything is hunky dory until something unexpected happens and the driver aids can't help you. Then unfortunately it's close the eyes time and call upon the no claims bonus protected comprehensive insurance.

Clueless is too kind, these people are bone lazy and do give a damn about your safety or even themselves and their passengers.

That was over 50 years ago IIRC (1979?), probably not too many of them left now.

Ye, it was 1979 so 43 years ago which would put their ages roughly from 60s up. I know a few in the amnesty boat and would rather walk than be driven by them.

I don't disagree that there are some drivers from this cohort who are a danger to themselves and others on the road. However I think its a sweeping generalisation to say that all such drivers are crap. In fact Id go as far as to say that its no more than the proportion or drivers who actually passed the pretty useless driving test in this country. As mentioned earlier, some of our professional drivers don't cover themselves in glory despite the regular refresher driving courses undertaken. As always, having the knowledge does not always translate to good practice on the road.

There is a concept in this thread that "people do not know how to drive", but by and large this is not true, they do know they just choose not to. This cohort who were given licences might be a bit less than others, but in the overall scheme of things they are not material. There are more people who did their test in Bulgaria or wherever.

They lost a huge opportunity to do this when the new licences were introduced 8 years ago. Everyone should have been required to do a basic rules of the road MCQ, although you would still be back to people passing this and the going out and not doing the things they identified as the right answer.

In the near future it should be possible to design a decent simulator to provide a basic refresher test, with a road test for people who insist.

These things have a role to play.