Patricia Colquhoun asks for elderly drivers to be retested

3:20pm Friday 26th October 2012 in Local By Chris Gregory

Neil Colquhoun Neil Colquhoun

IT WOULD be too expensive and inconvenient for elderly drivers to retake driving tests, a grieving mother has been told.

Neil Colquhoun, of Birch Grove, Hook, died following a head-on collision that took place on the A30 between Water End and Hatch, on March 11 last year.

The driver of the other car, retired GP Turner Waddell, who was 89 at the time of the crash, was given a suspended jail sentence at Winchester Crown Court after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving. He had been driving on the wrong carriageway.

Judge Keith Cutler said Waddell should not have been driving at all due to poor eyesight.

After the sentence, Mr Colquhoun’s mother Patricia, of Harebell Close, Hartley Wintney, wrote to her MP, James Arbuthnot, asking if drivers over 80 could undergo a theory or practical retest.

Her letter was forwarded to Mike Penning MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport.

In his written reply, seen by The Gazette, he said there are no plans to introduce a theory or practical driving test for older drivers, and that licences are issued on the basis of medical fitness, not age.

Mr Penning added: “There is no current evidence to suggest any form of additional testing of all older drivers would have a major effect on road safety.

“Introducing such tests would, however, put the majority of older drivers, who remain competent and fit to drive and who make sensible decisions about when and how they do so, to unnecessary additional inconvenience and expense.”

Currently, drivers over 70 have to declare they are fit to drive and licences have to be renewed every three years.

Mrs Colquhoun told The Gazette: “It’s ridiculous. If people can afford to have a car and maintain it, they can afford to be retested.

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“Everybody slows down when they get older – it’s a natural part of ageing. But on the road you need to be aware of what is going on around you, not in your own little world.”

Mrs Colquhoun said she hopes a planned appearance on Inside Out, the BBC regional news digest programme, will help boost awareness of the issue.

Comments(10)

Sam_Walker123456 says...
3:43pm Fri 26 Oct 12

Mr Penning added: “Introducing such tests would, however, put the majority of older drivers, who remain competent and fit to drive and who make sensible decisions about when and how they do so, to unnecessary additional inconvenience and expense.”
Sorry, Mr Penning but this is the way of society - the majority always pay for the inconsiderate minority.
How many more people have to die before it outweighs the inconvenience and expense to the rest of us.
I am fully in agreement with Mrs Colquhoun on this issue.
Of course the real reason for Mr Penning's response is that he thinks it will lose his party support from the grey voters - does he think we are all that selfish?
Finally I think this is a suitable issue for an e-petition and referendum.

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keepontriking says...
5:19pm Fri 26 Oct 12

I'm truly sickened that someone who can afford to drive and whose ability to do so may be impaired is not required to take regular retests on the grounds of cost.
The thousands of innocent people who are killed and injured on our roads is testimony to the failure to take road safety seriously.
My heart goes out to the families of those who die through such selfishness.

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guywithsomesense says...
5:20pm Fri 26 Oct 12

A few year ago I almost had a head on collision with an elderly couple in a car who were sitting patiently at the traffic lights near the hospital (before they changed that part of the road), trouble was they were sitting on the wrong side of the road, I had to slam my brakes on and wait for him to realise and move.

That was a few years after I saw another elderly couple driving UP the festival place exit that runs down the back of the cinema,..

Many people drive too fast or chat on their phone at the same time which is dangerous, but not having the slightest clue that your on the wrong side of the road is just scary,..

They should definitely have to go through some sort of test,...

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keepontriking says...
6:04pm Fri 26 Oct 12

Perhaps something the Gazette could take up that would save lives, rather than focussing on prosecutions for cyclists who have been bullied off the roads due to the dangers.

And it's not just the elderly - ALL drivers should have retests, say every 10 years.

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Tttoommy says...
6:06pm Fri 26 Oct 12

Its young male drivers under 25 who are at most risk of killing other people on the road and also car accidents are the single biggest killer of men under 25 so who do we ban? The answer seems to be old f4rts who annoy other drivers by sticking to 30mph in town centres

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lovemychildren says...
12:27am Sun 28 Oct 12

I agree with more regular tests for all drivers. I passed in 2000, at 20 yrs old and the amount of 40 and 50 + yr olds I argued with over the highway code was unbelievable! The simplest being the national speed limit on a single and dual carriageway.
The tests don't have to be in depth (like earning your license in the 1st place) nor as expensive.

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Best_Name_Ever says...
4:15pm Sun 28 Oct 12

keepontriking wrote:
Perhaps something the Gazette could take up that would save lives, rather than focussing on prosecutions for cyclists who have been bullied off the roads due to the dangers.

And it's not just the elderly - ALL drivers should have retests, say every 10 years.
Bullied off the roads? There are so many cyclists on the road nowadays, maybe we should also have tests for them! The ones I have seen trying to turn at junctions could do with a bit of testing for road sense.

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Abaddon666 says...
5:50pm Sun 28 Oct 12

This is just another example of how stupid the current driving laws are. EVERYONE who is entitled to drive a motor vehicle should have to take a mini-retest every 4 or 5 years. That will ensure that unsafe drivers fall back to provisional status until they prove they can meet the current standards.
It will also create revenue and jobs.
For MP Mike Penning to say it would cost too much just shows how stupid he is in regard to the revenue that would be created and that he should not be in the position of under-secretary of state for transport.

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Hector2004 says...
9:22am Mon 29 Oct 12

I don’t think you can categorise all old drivers as bad; in fact, I’d say that every age group have an equal representation of bad drivers. It’s certainly true that male under 25’s are statistically more dangerous than any other group as Tttoommy points out. Maybe a bi-annual re-test / refresher should be mandatory. How would we deal with drivers from other European countries though, where driving licenses are more of a paperwork issue than an actual assessment of competence ?

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Sam_Walker123456 says...
12:08pm Wed 14 Nov 12

What about the Government making it law that all new cars are fitted with black boxes? If the black box records too much bad driving then the driver is called in for a test. This system also has the advantage that every driver will pay insurance based on their driving and not on their age or sex.

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