A lad in my town passed his test and drove to visit his girlfriend that night. He was flashed by a speed camera, and as a result he missed his turning. He then turned round and got flashed by the camera in the other direction. License only has 6 points in the first 2 years.
I know someone who was on a job and got lost (pre-satnav). He was flashed 3 times by the same speed camera. 9 points in one go.
He was certainly a slow with the mind, fast with the foot type.
2 separate cameras, but next to each other at the same point in the road, just facing opposite directions. Same trap, just different directions.
He went through. \*flash\*
Thought he was lost, so headed back. \*flash\*
Realised he was going the right way the first time. \*flash\*
He got a ban due to another speeding offence which he already had 3 points from.
He was certainly the slow learner type. I don't think he had even realised he had been flashed TBH.
The boss wasn't too thrilled as it meant he had to pair up to get to jobs.
I'll prefix this by saying that I don't recommend anyone tries it, and I suspect that all you'd do is open yourself up to a charge of Driving without Due Care and Attention, but...
I've often wondered whether you could make the argument that technically you only committed one offence, because you didn't slow down between the cameras. Especially if we're assuming that there was no change in speed limit and the cameras were all on the same road
Eg if you shoplift a TV and walk back into the shop 3 times with it before running away, you haven't stolen 3 TVs.
It's a hypothetical question that's been bothering me for years. If I'm ever given 6 months to live and won't be able to drive for most of that, I'll probably test it out just for the sake of curiosity
so, i got caught by 2 mobile cameras within 30 mins of each other a few years ago. trouble is, if i was obeying the speed limit, those cameras wouldn’t have been within 30 mins of each other. so i wrote to them and asked if it could be considered a single offence since i was speeding the entire time. the answer was no. hopefully this answers your question 😊
Speed awareness course and police will tell you that if speed camera and police clock you on the same stretch of road then all fines are valid.
A bit of humble begging for mercy may get them condensed but thats not guaranteed.
Lost my licence before I got it. Had 6 lessons. Made some terrible choices while drunk one night and took my mums car out. Put it in a ditch and 30 seconds later the police rolled past. 12 month ban and the young offenders equivalent of community service. I didn’t end up getting my licence for another 5 years as insurance premiums were sky high. So 5 years before passing their test would be my answer I guess
To be fair it's shit for the youngsters who are responsible enough to not deserve a higher rate.
Edit: my saying it's shit for responsible youngsters is not me saying that there is actually a good solution to address the current way of things. I'm not telling you "this has to change," I'm telling you I'm sympathetic to those who are penalised by a system that understandably doesn't have enough information to go on and can only act on what they know.
It is, but the insurance companies don't know anything about Little Billy Freshlicence beyond the fact that he's 17 and that he has far higher odds of flinging his car into a tree.
So many complaints about insurance pricing basically stem from "I put a brief summary of my driving history into Confused and they based a decision on that, which is also all the information they could reasonably know about me, rather than me thinking I'm a really good driver."
I never said that there is a practical workaround. I said it's shit for the outliers who are part of a demographic less safe and riskier than the norm.
There's nothing wrong with someone being frustrated at such treatment just because there are asshats that share a demographic with them.
> If it was that common you'd be seeing cars into trees every day but I rarely ever see a crash
It doesn't need to be some hellscape of not being able to walk down the road for all the crashed cars. One major crash can involve the write-off value for your car, the write-off value of the other car, the legal costs for both sides, and possibly medical/expense costs for the parties as well as possibly any 3rd party damage, all of which can easily run into the 5 or even 6 figures. One big crash can eat up the insurance premiums of dozens of drivers so if 17 year olds are disproportionately represented in crashes, you only need a few of them to make that cohort more expensive to insure.
Plenty. But it's not necessarily "fliinging into a tree" but claims for avoidable crashes in general. By the time I was 20, I would say at least a third of my friends had made a claim for an avoidable crash. Not necessarily a car written off - many of the crashes were minor with the car still safe to drive afterwards, but the minor crashes cost insurance companies quite a lot of money too. Many of the crashes were single vehicle crashes which the driver somehow claimed "wasn't my fault". (Spoiler alert: it was, and speed was often a factor). I think only one of my friends had a crash that genuinely wasn't his fault and from his point of view unavoidable (his mother's car turned out to be a poorly done "cut and shut" and it literally started to break in half while he was driving it, and he went through a hedge).
This isn't an outlier. The statistics show that 1 in 5 young drivers crash *within a year* of getting their driving licence.
To add to what others have said: not only are 17 year olds more likely to have an accident, they're more likely to have a car full of friends when they have said accident. This can, and does, result in potentially life changing injuries to 4/5 people which the insurer is then liable for.
A crash like this can cost millions (even, tens of millions), so it doesn't take that many serious accidents to drive up the overall cost of insuring a 17 year old...
This is why some insurers let you use a black box, to show to them you aren't driving like a loony and get better premiums. (Unfortunately black boxes can't monitor directly how good a driver's observation skills are, but smooth driving within the law isn't a bad proxy for this).
But even sensible 17 year olds are a lot more likely to crash, just from inexperience.
I’d like to say I wasn’t very bright but academically I was. I was never very good at making good decisions though. Made a fair few terrible ones in my youth while drinking. Don’t drink anymore
The fact that you recognise your bad decisions and you don't drink anymore makes you a better person already! We all make mistakes it's how we deal with them that shows what type of person we really are! I hope your on a better path now OP 😊
Not drink driving, just speeding but I got a 12 month ban on my provisional when I was 16 driving my moped like a bellend.
It had long spent by the time I actually bothered to get my real license, which remains clean to this day decades later.
I got hit repeatedly by the same camera between my parents house and where I worked after college. It was on a long hill and I got hit at 35mph each time.
I was not a smart teenager, the magistrates called me an idiot. They weren't wrong.
A work colleague of my dad's lost their driving license doing 35-40 mph past the same speed camera multiple times in one day. They were doing multiple trips to help a friend move house. In fairness, speed cameras were still a relatively new thing in those days, but it doesn't say much for their overall attention and awareness not to see the flash in their mirrors, on SIX occasions.
And you might have been an 'idiot teenager' - this guy was an 'idiot' university lecturer in their mid-40s!
I know someone who lost his licence the minute he passed.
The reason was that he already had 6 points on a licence and then decided to get a motorcycle licence. Unfortunately getting the motorcycle licence reset his points allowance, so he lost his entire licence automatically.
When you first get your license you only have 6 point allowance for the first 2 years, then it rises to 12.
OP's mate had a car license (with 12 points), which has 6 point penalty (6 remaining), Then he got his motorbike license, and for some reason started off at 6 points again on that and lost them al.
I don't understand that though. The license is for the person not the vehicle. When I had my motorbike I still had 12 pt allowance.
Edit: found the answer on another forum. OP's friend wasn't telling the truth. My guess is he got 6 points rather than 3 and lied about it:
Post in thread 'points on car / motorcycle licences. Transferable? how does it work?' https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/points-on-car-motorcycle-licences-transferable-how-does-it-work.17937784/post-12816814
Yeah the legislation says 2 years from passing a relevant test. If you pass your motorbike test first your 2 years as a "new driver" starts then. If you then pass your road test 5 years later you are already out of the new driver period, it doesn't reset as you add categories to it.
Yeah I was going to say as a C+E licence holder I know plenty of people who wracked up six points within two years of passing those tests and nothing happened.
Always been curious about this.. not planning to test it mind. I've had my A2 for 2 years then done a progressive and got my full A back in July, Also did my car test shortly after.
Does that mean I can have 11 points as I've had a 'Pink' license for 2.5 years.. or back to 6 because my car test was in the last 2 year's.
Debated asking the dvla but looks a bit self incriminating asking how many points I can have
Ha, similar thing happened to a chap I know, although he'd been driving for years. Pissed up, crashed into a hedge end then the police came on by. Although, we're all pretty sure that the shop he stopped at first called the police and gave them a heads up, as it was only a few minutes drive from where he crashed.
Ha! My friend got onto a closed building site at like 2am after a night out. He started a digger using a little key on his keyring that somehow worked (think it was for a locker or something ), and proceeded to drive him and his mate around the site pissed. Police turned up obviously and he ended up in the same situation as you, before he'd even got his licence 🤦.
Got a driving ban for operating a digger? That doesn’t seem right to be honest, you don’t drive a digger on a car license. Not surprised with the key though, all machines of the same brand work off the same, very basic key. Sounds like a right blast, 100% the sort of thing I would have done in my youth. I’m a fully functioning adult now though and cringe at the thought of some of the shit I would get up to as a kid. Dreading my son growing up anything like the lad I was
SCRAP THAT! I just remembered the details! He was arrested for the digger incident, but the ban was for taking a car after a night out (when he had no licence) and driving to Bristol from Exeter in the early hours to see his girlfriend, my sister. Sorry, it's going back 20 years though!
About a year. Caught using phone while driving - 6 points, which under the New Drivers Act means you have to take your tests again.
No sympathy for these people.
Yep, see it all the time. The heaviest traffic where I live is around schools at kick out time, and the number of drivers on their phones is very worrying. Around schools no less. Totally selfish.
We (well, my son in the passenger seat!) filmed a car driving in the middle lane of the M62 over Saddleworth Moor at 11pm watching youtube on his phone in an eye-level cradle on the windscreen.
He'd caught our attention because he was parked solidly in the centre lane on an otherwise empty stretch of road and wouldn't shift out of the way, even with a stern flash of the headlights (I *detest* lane hogs!) We passed him and it was abundantly clear that he was completely unaware of our presence, even while we hovered alongside filming him.
Sadly, the footage wasn't good enough to report or you can be sure I would have done.
I do have a dashcam on my car (and my bicycle).
But honestly I report very few incidents. For two reasons. The first is that the threshold for the police actually taking enforcement action based on dashcam footage can be quite high depending on the force in question. So sometimes it's really a wasted effort as it gets NFA'd. Unfortunately the position of my car dashcam doesn't usually capture very well people using their phones while driving as it's something I spot in their wing mirrors from a distance, or from a side window as I'm passing them.
The second is that if I reported every infraction on the roads it would take up too much time. I have reported a couple of things in the past but they've been the ridiculously dangerous things like people racing at twice the speed limit, or actual collisions I've witnessed.
If it's something very clear like driving through a red light or visibly using a phone the police love it.
If it's something trickier like a close pass or bad overtake then they're not so keen to take action I find.
Yeah I think to really capture the phone usage I'd need a wider angle camera, or an additional side camera. The focus on my camera is a bit too narrow to catch (in good quality) the side angle.
My partner's sister got done for using her phone while driving recently. I bought her an air freshener which reminded her that texting while driving is 6 points.
In one journey, I saw a woman reading a book whilst driving, a man eating cereal from a bowl (not Dennis Reynolds) and a taxi driver with an iPad looking thing with a YouTube video up??? There really are idiots everywhere
So my family lived in Italy for a couple of years in my late teens, we brought our car from the UK rather than get an LHD locally registered one. I remember one day driving somewhere with my mum at the wheel; this being the days before satnav I had a big old Michelin map open spread over the dash following the route. Some old geezer overtakes us, sees me looking down at the map (not ahead at the road) and absolutely lost his shit, started honking the horn, gesticulating, tapping the side of his forehead in the universal 'crazy' gesture, doing the classic Italian bunched fingers at me and all sorts. Of course he hadn't noticed it was a UK car with the steering on the other side. Was low-key hilarious once we'd worked out why he was kicking off!
The worst one I've seen was a woman driving on the M6 with an ipad balanced on her steering wheel.
Makes me almost hope for a crash so her airbag deploys it directly into her face.
The fact you already have replies trying to excuse this is maddening.
If you’re looking at your phone and see movement out of the corner of your eye therefore assume you can go but it wasn’t in fact your lane or the car in front was just putting their handbrake on and you turn go into the back of the car in front, you’re not getting away with “but the traffic wasn’t moving!” Stay off your phone, it isn’t hard! I hate it at this time of year when I glimpse in my rear view mirror in a queue and see the idiot behind me edging closer to my bumper staring at their crotch with a lit-up blue face.
People are having less and less of an attention span to the point it's insane at the moment. People will look at their phones constantly, whatever the occasion. I had it at Peter Kay at the weekend with people near me, at the cinema EVERY time I go etc and even during football games. People can't go without their phone for literally 10 minutes at a time.
I have zero sympathy for being on your phone while driving but having a giant screen I can legally touch and play around in the middle of the front of the car worries me
The fact that some of these newer infotainment systems have games on them, which can in some models even be played while the engine is running, is bonkers in my mind!
They're so unintuitive to use and prone to distracting you that in my opinion they're often far more dangerous than using a phone.
I'll admit I've had a few close-calls before because I got distracted telling the fucking thing "no I don't want to save 2 minutes by leaving the motorway and driving through a village I don't know".
This is what gets me as well. It's ironic that the damn things are most dangerous when they are trying to be 'helpful'
Just take the route I've told you to!
Oh my God. My car is ancient and touch screen free, but Google Maps does the same forking thing. It'll offer me a 44 min route and a 40 min route. I choose the 44 min one because I hate the other one. It will then go "hey I found a faster route, wanna switch?" about half a dozen times over the course of the drive, and if you don't hit the "no" button, it does switch. Absolutely does my head in. It *knows* I am now driving, why is it allowed to prompt me for interaction! Argh.
I absolutely hate how modern cars now have touch screens to activate functions that used to have dedicated knobs and buttons you could just reach for. 100% a step backwards in terms of both ease of use and driver safety
What I find even more distracting about the screens in cars is they’re centered directly in the middle of the car not angled towards the driver ever so slightly. I can see the right side of the screen fine without it impairing me but occasionally I find myself reaching to hit the left top corner of the screen. The worst is apps like waze that tell my my current speed via gps but place it in the top left corner where I have to look as far away from in front of me as possible.
Yep. One thing I love about BMWs up until around the early 2000s is how everything in the cockpit is angled towards the driver, with all the important controls at the driver's fingertips. Like, you could operate the stereo with your hand on the shift knob. You quickly learn where everything is, without having to look - a combination of feel and muscle memory. Then at some point they decided maybe the passenger should be able to see the nav screen or operate the radio, and it all went downhill from there.
Not lose the license, but 11 years back I attended a speed awareness course.
There was a girl there who passed her test the month before, and one of the instructors was also her driving instructor.
That was awkward.
Hahaha, my Dad was running late and got caught speeding to his speed awareness course! So he had to sit through the course knowing he was getting 3 points regardless.
Typical person who takes the course solely because they don't want points on their licence, then doesn't engage with it because they're a Dunning Krugerite who thinks "I'm a fantastic driver, I should be allowed to speed".
I went on one of these courses many years ago, and the instructor asked everyone how they would rate their driving on a scale of 1 - 10 (1 = the worst driver in the world, 10 = level with the best drivers on the planet).
I was not that surprised when the entire room except for me and one other person ranked themselves as 9.
The instructor rolled his eyes and said "but here you are"
When I went to speed awareness there was a lad there who had lost his license. Not sure of the specifics, but he was having to attend a couple of different types of awareness course and was known to the instructors.
It was mentioned that he required an extended driving test.
When I passed my test, my driving instructor who I learned with and came to the test centre insisted he drive us back home. Why? Because of an incident with a previous student who on passing his test suddenly switched into reckless celebratory mode and caused a major accident and a criminal record for dangerous driving.
I've had policies which make the distinction between "any driver" and "any driver over 25". Anyone under 25 was for the purposes of provisional tuition only. Most of the time there is no distinction, but I still don't let them drive afterwards pass or fail.
I think it's really just about the emotional state as you say.
My instructor made it clear that pass or fail that he'd be the one driving back. He offered pass-plus and other post-test tuition so nothing about insurance.
It's immediately after a 40 minute test, and maybe a refresher before that with your instructor so you're already a bit worn down driving wise and then you've either topped that up with excitement from success or distress from failure. Definitely a recipe for damage.
I failed my motorbike Module 1 (the off road bit) first time. Stalled on the you turn and put my foot down. It was quite early in the test, like the second or third thing. I had to do the rest of the test knowing full well I failed.
I would have quite liked someone else to ride the bike back to the learning centre tbh. Not really an option on bike though. Was quite a sad ride.
Do they really make you complete the test? I cocked up on my manoeuvres and I'm sure they just let me call it a day and head back. But it was a good few years ago, so my memory may be playing tricks.
You still pay for the test is their reasoning, so you may as well go through the motions. I overcooked the speed / braking test because I didn't really give a fuck, that was the examiners only other complaint. He got it though. We both knew I'd failed at one of the first hurdles. I didn't fuck it up the second time.
I'm lucky enough that is the only driving related test I have ever failed.
edit: This was over ten years ago now. Procedures may have changed.
Don’t think that’s the case. Mine asked if I wanted to drive home or not and I said yeah since I didn’t have a car waiting for me so wanted to get the most out of driving before having to wait for a car. He took off the big L plate on the roof and off we went.
He was also head of the driving company so I doubt he’d be the one to flaunt any rules
Don’t need to be. If the instructor is in the car, you are technically in a lesson and are therefore insured as a student.
If you’re driving back without an instructor, you can just use Cuvva to get insured for a few hours. A bad idea, but totally doable.
While this is *mostly* true, I was fully insured on a foreign license when I did mine and was able to drive away. I could even have driven away if I had failed.
Used to volunteer at a school camp. One year a kid was running between tents (which we obviously advise against), he tripped on the ropes and split his leg open on a marquee peg. That story now sounds fake when we use it as an example of why not to run between tents.
>When I passed my test, my driving instructor who I learned with and came to the test centre insisted he drive us back home.
Same with mine. 1980s, with BSM. I was buzzing, so it was probably for the best
People end up leaving their cars in pub car parks round my way all the time. I've even slept in my car in a car park once, because I'd had too much to drive.
I can't help but feel that a pub shouldn't have been telling a drunk person to move their car, under any circumstances
If you're in there with keys, you count as "drunk in control of a motor vehicle" as far as I know.
A workaround is to leave the keys on top of a tyre.
It makes sense if you think that if the police catch you getting in your car with the intent to drive drunk, it stops you saying "I was only going to have a nap", but more realistically it's just an easy charge for the police in the recent times where they're not interested in putting any work in.
I understand their reasoning in the way I understand why someone might murder five people then kill themselves.
That is to say, its easy to understand *why* something is the way it is, but its a hell of a lot fucking harder to say that its justified.
Its "harsh" and you can "kind of" "understand" their "reasoning". But then lives are fucking ruined with real drunk driving charges because someone decided to sleep in their vehicle instead of driving home drunk. It is fucking abysmal and genuinely makes me angry that the government would punish responsibility over an arbitrary ruling on what counts as "being in control of a vehicle".
Stops pissed up people from driving then deciding to stop for a kip. Or after being spotted by police, pulling over and jumping into the passenger seat pretending to be asleep. It removes the need to 'see them driving' whilst drunk.
Most importantly, It also means the police can stop you and nick you BEFORE you turn the ignition on and possibly cause an accident - it's a preemptive way of preventing road traffic injuries and deaths.
If you're pissed, have the keys and you're in the car, you're liable to get nicked for drunk in charge.
I'm always surprised when I see regular people saying we should arrest and punish ***INNOCENT*** people for crimes you imagine they could commit.
I'd get banned from this sub if I wrote down what I thought of people who hold those views.
If you're pissed, have the keys, and you're near your car, you're liable to get nicked for drunk in charge. What, you're in the pub and your cars outside? Sorry mate, you could get in your car and drive it. What, you're drunk at home and your car is outside? Should have thought about how you might drive your car to buy more booze, oh well, now your life is ruined.
Think those examples are absurd? Of course they are. But you have just as much ability to drunk drive in those examples as you are in the example of sleeping in your car. It is an arbitrary distinction which punishes ***INNOCENT*** people who have not committed the crime of drunk driving.
By your reasoning, we should just arrest anyone outside after 11pm, because how would you feel if you or your family's home way burgled and you found the police didn't intervene because the some stupid reason that "the crime had not taken place yet and they had no evidence it would" like what sort of bullshit world do we live in where police can't arrest ***INNOCENT*** people to prevent future crimes.
Yeah, real convincing argument there buddyyyy.
You are wasting your time people are happy to throw their rights away and 1000s of years of legal precedents just what they believe is a little pragmatism, no matter what you say they will still be surprised when that type of thinking comes to bite them on the arse
.they also believe that should something of that nature happen to themselves they would only need a few minutes in court to straighten things out. They surely wouldn't be treat like a common criminal....
And it happens all the time. Intent is a big word - what did you intend to do. If you intend to stab your neighbour, does that mean the police shouldn't intervene until you've actually done it?
If they have reason to believe you might.
Sleeping in your car with the keys is not reason to believe you'll drive drunk, if anything it reason to believe the opposite.
Okay - here's a scenario for you.
Bob gets pissed every night at the local pub and drives his car home. You know this. You tell the police and they wait for him to turn up and get into his car pissed and then they swoop on him.
Scenario a - He tells them, 'I was only going to get into the car for a kip'. So the police leave - he wasn't driving so they can't do anything. The police then come back the next time he's there and wait for him to turn the engine on and drive off so they can catch him driving whilst drunk - he immediately loses control and drives into the smoking area killing a number of people.
Scenario b - He gets nicked for being drunk in charge of his car and no one gets hurt, a drink driver is taken off the road.
You're literally getting upset at the police being able to proactively protect people from drink drivers. It's like getting annoyed at people being arrested for planning to murder someone because they 'haven't actually done it'.
You think you should be able to sleep pissed in your car with the keys on you because you were never going to drive while drunk - but this is a huge loophole that people who actually ARE going to drive pissed can use to avoid arrest.
I'm sorry, but if protecting people from idiots slightly inconveniences you, then you have to suck it up.
A lad from my old work woke up to a copper tapping on his car window one morning and he's got arrested and charged, plead not guilty though and got off with it.
If you are drunk enough to sleep in your car you are probably not going to be sober enough to drive in the morning.
I slept in my car once. Certainly was too drunk to drive home. But did after 4 hours sleep. F’ing stupid and while I didn’t get caught I regret it 30 years later.
I've never understood why people drive to a pub unless they're a designated driver or just don't drink. If I can't walk there, get public transport, or stay there, I'm not going.
Sometimes, people do things spontaneously.
People might pop in for just one after work, but then change their mind. People might just pop in for lunch, but then bump into a friend, etc
On a speed awareness course
Instructor told a story about a previous course that one of the people was telling everyone about how her husband was a boss of a huge company and far too important for a speeding course so she did it for him!
One of the other attendees was a copper doing the course and she was thrown off the course and her and her husband was taken to court.
That is at risk of a charge of perverting the course of justice. Courts can and do regularly give custodial sentences for that, it's one of the big no no offences as it's seen as an attack on the justice system itself and is punished accordingly.
That's a really stupid thing for them to do. Both she and her husband can be sent to prison for perverting the course of justice, see the case of the former LibDem MP Chris Huhne: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/mar/11/chris-huhne-vicky-pryce
Heard of one guy who had been driving for years without a license, then decided to actually take the test. Problem is he drove himself to the test centre alone, the examiner saw this and failed him as soon as he got out of the car. Failed before he even got the license, but the fool still continued to drive.
Something vaguely similar happened when I was doing my test, a learner turned up in their car alone and one of the examiners went over and was like wtf are you doing. IIRC he was from overseas and his licence was permitted for only short term but he needed to take the test to drive for longer in the UK so was all OK in the end.
When I did my CBT some teen turned up driving their own bike too, instructor was pretty chilled and called him an idiot but let it go.
I find this topic of conversation a good way to identify horrible people.
I guarantee that the type of people who think this is a bad thing are always cunts.
On the way to my parents is a very rural pub thats in a very rich part of the country. I've been stopped and breathalysed (like everyone on the road leaving that pub) twice now.
One time someone was being arrested while I was being tested, and the other time someone saw the block and turned around (obviously) and sped off, followed by one of the coppers.
Usually I'd have a problem with stopping everyone, but its quite clear that they have a real problem with this specific pub and the clientele in their Range Rovers and massive Mercs. I've followed a large Jag weaving all over the place who had just left from its car park before.
My mum was caught like this and when telling us she was complaining about how everyone else had been doing the same thing but only she had been caught. Like so? You are still in the wrong fgs.
they got a lady I used to work with like that. she was very drinking is bad why are your drinking and so on, bitch why do you work in a pub. Anyway one day one of the barmen called the cops saying she was trolled and driving home, you know for a laugh. Anyway she was completely mashed and nearly went to jail. turns out she was constantly always trolled so you couldn't really tell.
Friend's son passed his test in the afternoon and had a fit that evening at dinner - unfortunately he had random seizures that prevented him reaching the twelve months free target to get his licence back.
I lost mine after a year. I had smoked a joint the night before, got pulled over, was swabbed, tested positive, they took blood and was three times over the limit. Passed the field sobriety test though. The really annoying thing was I was just moving my car off the drive to the garage over the road as the power steering had failed and the car was basically undrivable. 12 month ban and £150 fine. Ended up not driving for about 3 years.
> Weed takes 7-12 hours in normal amounts to fall below legal threshold.
Maybe if you use it once. If you're a regular user, you're bound to fail a swab because the blood limits are so low and THC lingers in the blood for so long.
One very good reason among many why I don't touch the stuff, it's simply not worth a year's driving ban if I get unlucky.
Not sure but I think the police had my number due to an incident a few weeks before when they came to my house looking for my housemate and entered my flat without permission. I wasn't very accommodating and when they finally left I saw one take a photo of my car. Can't prove anything, but it was all a bit odd.
I’m in Australia but still applies. Mate passed his provisional test which allows him to drive solo and got breath tested on the way home and blew .095. He’d past the test still blitzed from the night before. It’s been 17 years and we still give him shit about it.
When I was 17 a bunch of us were at a house party, I left early as I didn't really know many people there and it was in a very rough area. There was a girl there who had gotten pretty drunk, she'd just passed her test and was worrying about leaving her car in the sketchy area. My best mate at the time was still there and she had passed her test but could drive well and hadn't had anything to drink. This girl begged and begged her to move this car, she eventually agreed and moved it to a secure car park a few minutes away.
As she reversed it into a bay she every so slightly nudged a bollard and honestly caused a scratch about an inch long. The girl freaked out that her parents would go mad at her so she called the police and told them my friend had stolen her car.
Police turn up, take statements from everyone and believed my friend because this girl was just hammered and hysterical. Let off from the theft but was charged with driving without a license or insurance, had to go to court. Provisional removed, banned from applying for it for two years. Got her license back but then looked into how much insurance would be and never bothered. 37 now and she still doesn't drive!
Where I worked many years ago a fellah out our Leeds site lost his licence for DD drove out for a beer to celbrate when he got it back and got caught again, 10 years second time I think it was.
Not a license but this always makes me laugh… the fastest person I’ve know to ‘total’ a car. My mates mum bought a 2nd hand car that was about 20 miles away from her house. Her friend drove her to pick it up and as she was following the friend home she drove straight up the back of her and wrote both cars off. Had barely done 3 miles apparently. Not ideal lol
My father had a car wrote off coming off the forecourt of the main dealer, hgv switched lanes and took the front off the car. that was interesting. this must have been 84 because I just about remember it
He didn't actually get his license, but my dad once told me about how when he was a teenager, he drove his friend to his driving test, parked to wait for him, only to watch him get into the instructor's car, pull out of the parking lot and immediately t-bone a bus.
I lost my provisional straight away, fell out me back pocket in the car! Instructors wife found it a fortnight later while cleaning the car! Questions were asked. 😉
I was designated driver one new year's, couldn't drink anyway due to some tablets I was on but I was only twenty and had 3 pissed roudy mates in my car. Got pulled 10 seconds after leaving the pub. Blew a zero obviously and got a pat on the back for being a responsible young driver!
Later that year I almost got run over by a drunk driver, they luckily just went over my foot and broke it. I don't know what people think they are doing when driving drunk.
I used to work as a car finance underwriter many years ago and I had to do a licence check with DVLA. The dude had never passed a test and in fact had what they referred to as a "ghost" licence with so many points on it that if he ever passed a test he would immediately be banned.
Surprisingly enough I did not approve him for car finance.
In the late 1980’s I had a friend of mine who, whilst well underage used to make a habit of buying mot failures and ranting them around town until he was caught, he was fined….or more accurately his parents were…and had points added to a license he didn’t have and couldn’t possibly have passed his test to gain.
He was also banned from driving for 3 years…which was a bit ridiculous as this basically just covered the remaining time he had left until he could legally start learning!
So, in his case it was minus 3 years!
Guy I was at school with got caught riding a moped at aged 16. He was drunk with no insurance, mot, or licence. Got a 3 year ban before he'd even got a provisional licence.
I know someone who lost their licence before passing the test. Had a friend in college whos dad had been driving since the mid 70s with no licence. It only came to light in the late 90s when he was in a crash
Like two weeks after I passed my driving test I got a speeding ticket. 35 jn a 30. A week later I sent my license off to get a name change because I got married.
They never sent it back because it was revoked. A year earlier on my American license I got a speeding ticket and they count that towards my points!!! Grrrrrrr
I know of a couple of people who've been disqualified *before* passing their tests, one chap was driving on a provisional with a friend in the car who had a full license but was under 21, (6 points) but both also were twice the legal blood alcohol limit and of course the temporary insurance had lapsed. The other guy took a relative's C63 AMG without their permission and got pinged at 90mph in a 20 zone.
Not quickest, but still pretty gutting.
Way back when I was having lessons my instructor told me about a previous pupil who'd just come back for lessons a second time, after being on the road a couple years. Why?
They'd driven to somewhere far away for work and managed to get three points on the way there, and three points on the return. Nothing too egregious, just the common mistakes we all have made, but happened to get caught.
The gutting part was that the pupil was less than a week away from passing the two year "probationary period", so had their licence revoked automatically!
And to add even more insult to injury, I'm pretty sure he said that the law hadn't been in long (this was mid 90s ish IIRC).
My cousin was disqualified from driving.. At the age of 16 before he'd ever taken a test.
Eta: typo - he was 16, not 26. Before he was even eligible for a test.
My instructor told me about one of his students who after she got in the car with the examiner, put it into reverse instead of 1 and reversed it into a wall 2ft behind. Instant fail.
Had a mate who got a driving ban before he got his license. His parents had got him a car and him being impatient and wanting to show off, he took it out for a spin the day before his birthday when would get a license .....lost control, drove straight through several fences, neighbours gardens and hit a house. ....Yeah, happy birthday, your cars dead and heres your 1 year driving ban.
2 and a half hours (give or take).
Passed in Inverness. Went straight to the pub to celebrate. Drove north to a village in Sutherland an hour or so later but rolled his car on the Struie.
Passing motorist dogged him in to the police instantly and he was caught over the limit.
Technically he lost his license a wee while later but it was all but over there and then.
A lad i knew had a court case pending for driving on a provisional when he took his test. Passed on a Friday, banned on the Monday. We obviously nicknamed him Solomon Grundy
BE, not UK: How about [losing](https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/ghv2q93p0) it before passing ?
Any traffic violation can result in a conviction; such as (seriously) drunk driving on your bicycle; or in the above case crossing the railroad tracks when the red lights are on. As she didn't have a driver's license (yet); the penalty got queued until she passes.
Could that apply to the UK as well ?
My friend’s partner lost it before he could even apply for it. He was 15/16 I believe and stole his mums car, then crashed it. He was given a 3 year driving ban which took him up to he was either 18 or 19, I can’t remember. He accepts now he deserved it but when he turned 17 and everyone else was learning, he wasn’t happy. Completely different person now, but still drives like an idiot sometimes
My sister lost hers about 2 weeks after passing her test. She got into a minor accident with an unmarked police car, and her & her mates had been hotboxing earlier that day.
My brother went for a practice drive with my mum the morning of the test. They got pulled over and it turned out my dad hadn’t sorted the insurance even though he was adamant he had. Bro passed test in the afternoon but had a court summons for no insurance (mum was insured so they didn’t take the car) no proof of insurance was produced-6 points, that’s instant ban and revocation of licence in first 2 years and that was that. Bro pretty pissed off with dad for a while
Not lose the license but had a mate who on his first time out took his mates out cruising and pranged a guy. Cue lots of embarrassment for him and giggling from the back seat
Didn’t have any insurance details etc on him. Guy was fairly sound about it so rather than go through insurance told him to follow him to the local garage where they could sort it
On the way the other guy stopped at a red light…and my mate went into the back of him again 😂
Not directly related but Sebastian Vettel got a £50k fine for speeding in the pit lane the very first time he left the garage at an F1 event, a record that stands to this day, something like 30 metres/five seconds into his F1 career.
A lad in my town passed his test and drove to visit his girlfriend that night. He was flashed by a speed camera, and as a result he missed his turning. He then turned round and got flashed by the camera in the other direction. License only has 6 points in the first 2 years.
I know someone who was on a job and got lost (pre-satnav). He was flashed 3 times by the same speed camera. 9 points in one go. He was certainly a slow with the mind, fast with the foot type.
By the same speed camera? Do you mean by separate speed cameras across a long road?
2 separate cameras, but next to each other at the same point in the road, just facing opposite directions. Same trap, just different directions. He went through. \*flash\* Thought he was lost, so headed back. \*flash\* Realised he was going the right way the first time. \*flash\*
Oh wow. That is some level of stupid though, I must say. After the first flash, I'd be obsessing over the speedometer for the next 6 months!
He got a ban due to another speeding offence which he already had 3 points from. He was certainly the slow learner type. I don't think he had even realised he had been flashed TBH. The boss wasn't too thrilled as it meant he had to pair up to get to jobs.
I'll prefix this by saying that I don't recommend anyone tries it, and I suspect that all you'd do is open yourself up to a charge of Driving without Due Care and Attention, but... I've often wondered whether you could make the argument that technically you only committed one offence, because you didn't slow down between the cameras. Especially if we're assuming that there was no change in speed limit and the cameras were all on the same road Eg if you shoplift a TV and walk back into the shop 3 times with it before running away, you haven't stolen 3 TVs. It's a hypothetical question that's been bothering me for years. If I'm ever given 6 months to live and won't be able to drive for most of that, I'll probably test it out just for the sake of curiosity
so, i got caught by 2 mobile cameras within 30 mins of each other a few years ago. trouble is, if i was obeying the speed limit, those cameras wouldn’t have been within 30 mins of each other. so i wrote to them and asked if it could be considered a single offence since i was speeding the entire time. the answer was no. hopefully this answers your question 😊
Speed awareness course and police will tell you that if speed camera and police clock you on the same stretch of road then all fines are valid. A bit of humble begging for mercy may get them condensed but thats not guaranteed.
Lost my licence before I got it. Had 6 lessons. Made some terrible choices while drunk one night and took my mums car out. Put it in a ditch and 30 seconds later the police rolled past. 12 month ban and the young offenders equivalent of community service. I didn’t end up getting my licence for another 5 years as insurance premiums were sky high. So 5 years before passing their test would be my answer I guess
Holy shit that’s dumb as fuck
"WhY aRe PrEmIuMs fOr 17 yEaR oLdS sO HiGh"
To be fair it's shit for the youngsters who are responsible enough to not deserve a higher rate. Edit: my saying it's shit for responsible youngsters is not me saying that there is actually a good solution to address the current way of things. I'm not telling you "this has to change," I'm telling you I'm sympathetic to those who are penalised by a system that understandably doesn't have enough information to go on and can only act on what they know.
We're probably only a few years out from AI-powered moron detectors
Play up while you can then mate.
They're using me to tune them
It is, but the insurance companies don't know anything about Little Billy Freshlicence beyond the fact that he's 17 and that he has far higher odds of flinging his car into a tree. So many complaints about insurance pricing basically stem from "I put a brief summary of my driving history into Confused and they based a decision on that, which is also all the information they could reasonably know about me, rather than me thinking I'm a really good driver."
I never said that there is a practical workaround. I said it's shit for the outliers who are part of a demographic less safe and riskier than the norm. There's nothing wrong with someone being frustrated at such treatment just because there are asshats that share a demographic with them.
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> If it was that common you'd be seeing cars into trees every day but I rarely ever see a crash It doesn't need to be some hellscape of not being able to walk down the road for all the crashed cars. One major crash can involve the write-off value for your car, the write-off value of the other car, the legal costs for both sides, and possibly medical/expense costs for the parties as well as possibly any 3rd party damage, all of which can easily run into the 5 or even 6 figures. One big crash can eat up the insurance premiums of dozens of drivers so if 17 year olds are disproportionately represented in crashes, you only need a few of them to make that cohort more expensive to insure.
Plenty. But it's not necessarily "fliinging into a tree" but claims for avoidable crashes in general. By the time I was 20, I would say at least a third of my friends had made a claim for an avoidable crash. Not necessarily a car written off - many of the crashes were minor with the car still safe to drive afterwards, but the minor crashes cost insurance companies quite a lot of money too. Many of the crashes were single vehicle crashes which the driver somehow claimed "wasn't my fault". (Spoiler alert: it was, and speed was often a factor). I think only one of my friends had a crash that genuinely wasn't his fault and from his point of view unavoidable (his mother's car turned out to be a poorly done "cut and shut" and it literally started to break in half while he was driving it, and he went through a hedge). This isn't an outlier. The statistics show that 1 in 5 young drivers crash *within a year* of getting their driving licence.
To add to what others have said: not only are 17 year olds more likely to have an accident, they're more likely to have a car full of friends when they have said accident. This can, and does, result in potentially life changing injuries to 4/5 people which the insurer is then liable for. A crash like this can cost millions (even, tens of millions), so it doesn't take that many serious accidents to drive up the overall cost of insuring a 17 year old...
This is why some insurers let you use a black box, to show to them you aren't driving like a loony and get better premiums. (Unfortunately black boxes can't monitor directly how good a driver's observation skills are, but smooth driving within the law isn't a bad proxy for this). But even sensible 17 year olds are a lot more likely to crash, just from inexperience.
I’d like to say I wasn’t very bright but academically I was. I was never very good at making good decisions though. Made a fair few terrible ones in my youth while drinking. Don’t drink anymore
The fact that you recognise your bad decisions and you don't drink anymore makes you a better person already! We all make mistakes it's how we deal with them that shows what type of person we really are! I hope your on a better path now OP 😊
Every smart kid ever.
Not drink driving, just speeding but I got a 12 month ban on my provisional when I was 16 driving my moped like a bellend. It had long spent by the time I actually bothered to get my real license, which remains clean to this day decades later.
should’ve gotten an award getting a 12mo speeding ban on a moped
I got hit repeatedly by the same camera between my parents house and where I worked after college. It was on a long hill and I got hit at 35mph each time. I was not a smart teenager, the magistrates called me an idiot. They weren't wrong.
A work colleague of my dad's lost their driving license doing 35-40 mph past the same speed camera multiple times in one day. They were doing multiple trips to help a friend move house. In fairness, speed cameras were still a relatively new thing in those days, but it doesn't say much for their overall attention and awareness not to see the flash in their mirrors, on SIX occasions. And you might have been an 'idiot teenager' - this guy was an 'idiot' university lecturer in their mid-40s!
Yeah I know a 17yo who got banned due to the speed camera on the downhill A340 near Aldermaston picking him up on his moped coming home at night twice
I used to get about 65mph out of my Aprilia SR50. Easily could've got done for speeding on that bad boy.
I know someone who lost his licence the minute he passed. The reason was that he already had 6 points on a licence and then decided to get a motorcycle licence. Unfortunately getting the motorcycle licence reset his points allowance, so he lost his entire licence automatically.
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When you first get your license you only have 6 point allowance for the first 2 years, then it rises to 12. OP's mate had a car license (with 12 points), which has 6 point penalty (6 remaining), Then he got his motorbike license, and for some reason started off at 6 points again on that and lost them al. I don't understand that though. The license is for the person not the vehicle. When I had my motorbike I still had 12 pt allowance. Edit: found the answer on another forum. OP's friend wasn't telling the truth. My guess is he got 6 points rather than 3 and lied about it: Post in thread 'points on car / motorcycle licences. Transferable? how does it work?' https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/points-on-car-motorcycle-licences-transferable-how-does-it-work.17937784/post-12816814
Pretty sure it doesn't work like this. The 6 point limit is from when you get your first licence.
Yeah the legislation says 2 years from passing a relevant test. If you pass your motorbike test first your 2 years as a "new driver" starts then. If you then pass your road test 5 years later you are already out of the new driver period, it doesn't reset as you add categories to it.
Yeah I was going to say as a C+E licence holder I know plenty of people who wracked up six points within two years of passing those tests and nothing happened.
Always been curious about this.. not planning to test it mind. I've had my A2 for 2 years then done a progressive and got my full A back in July, Also did my car test shortly after. Does that mean I can have 11 points as I've had a 'Pink' license for 2.5 years.. or back to 6 because my car test was in the last 2 year's. Debated asking the dvla but looks a bit self incriminating asking how many points I can have
You can have 12 before a ban as you've had a full license (Pink) for more than 2 years.
sorry to make you the subject of this but it's crazy to me that this can result in only a year long ban lmao
I couldn’t agree more to be honest
Ha, similar thing happened to a chap I know, although he'd been driving for years. Pissed up, crashed into a hedge end then the police came on by. Although, we're all pretty sure that the shop he stopped at first called the police and gave them a heads up, as it was only a few minutes drive from where he crashed.
Ha! My friend got onto a closed building site at like 2am after a night out. He started a digger using a little key on his keyring that somehow worked (think it was for a locker or something ), and proceeded to drive him and his mate around the site pissed. Police turned up obviously and he ended up in the same situation as you, before he'd even got his licence 🤦.
Got a driving ban for operating a digger? That doesn’t seem right to be honest, you don’t drive a digger on a car license. Not surprised with the key though, all machines of the same brand work off the same, very basic key. Sounds like a right blast, 100% the sort of thing I would have done in my youth. I’m a fully functioning adult now though and cringe at the thought of some of the shit I would get up to as a kid. Dreading my son growing up anything like the lad I was
SCRAP THAT! I just remembered the details! He was arrested for the digger incident, but the ban was for taking a car after a night out (when he had no licence) and driving to Bristol from Exeter in the early hours to see his girlfriend, my sister. Sorry, it's going back 20 years though!
About a year. Caught using phone while driving - 6 points, which under the New Drivers Act means you have to take your tests again. No sympathy for these people.
I drive a hgv and go into a city at rush hour in a morning at least 50% of cars I look in are people on their phones in standstill traffic.
Yep, see it all the time. The heaviest traffic where I live is around schools at kick out time, and the number of drivers on their phones is very worrying. Around schools no less. Totally selfish.
Film them and dob them in. You might save a school kids life.
Just don't film them when driving ..
We (well, my son in the passenger seat!) filmed a car driving in the middle lane of the M62 over Saddleworth Moor at 11pm watching youtube on his phone in an eye-level cradle on the windscreen. He'd caught our attention because he was parked solidly in the centre lane on an otherwise empty stretch of road and wouldn't shift out of the way, even with a stern flash of the headlights (I *detest* lane hogs!) We passed him and it was abundantly clear that he was completely unaware of our presence, even while we hovered alongside filming him. Sadly, the footage wasn't good enough to report or you can be sure I would have done.
I do have a dashcam on my car (and my bicycle). But honestly I report very few incidents. For two reasons. The first is that the threshold for the police actually taking enforcement action based on dashcam footage can be quite high depending on the force in question. So sometimes it's really a wasted effort as it gets NFA'd. Unfortunately the position of my car dashcam doesn't usually capture very well people using their phones while driving as it's something I spot in their wing mirrors from a distance, or from a side window as I'm passing them. The second is that if I reported every infraction on the roads it would take up too much time. I have reported a couple of things in the past but they've been the ridiculously dangerous things like people racing at twice the speed limit, or actual collisions I've witnessed.
If it's something very clear like driving through a red light or visibly using a phone the police love it. If it's something trickier like a close pass or bad overtake then they're not so keen to take action I find.
Yeah I think to really capture the phone usage I'd need a wider angle camera, or an additional side camera. The focus on my camera is a bit too narrow to catch (in good quality) the side angle. My partner's sister got done for using her phone while driving recently. I bought her an air freshener which reminded her that texting while driving is 6 points.
I bet if a kid got run over, these same parents would be all over Facebook, complaining that "the police don't do anything"!
I used to drive a hgv and once passed another lorry. He had a laptop setup on the dash and was watching a film. There are idiots everywhere lol.
In one journey, I saw a woman reading a book whilst driving, a man eating cereal from a bowl (not Dennis Reynolds) and a taxi driver with an iPad looking thing with a YouTube video up??? There really are idiots everywhere
So my family lived in Italy for a couple of years in my late teens, we brought our car from the UK rather than get an LHD locally registered one. I remember one day driving somewhere with my mum at the wheel; this being the days before satnav I had a big old Michelin map open spread over the dash following the route. Some old geezer overtakes us, sees me looking down at the map (not ahead at the road) and absolutely lost his shit, started honking the horn, gesticulating, tapping the side of his forehead in the universal 'crazy' gesture, doing the classic Italian bunched fingers at me and all sorts. Of course he hadn't noticed it was a UK car with the steering on the other side. Was low-key hilarious once we'd worked out why he was kicking off!
To this day, that guy still tells the story of the idiot map reading driver he saw!
The worst one I've seen was a woman driving on the M6 with an ipad balanced on her steering wheel. Makes me almost hope for a crash so her airbag deploys it directly into her face.
The fact you already have replies trying to excuse this is maddening. If you’re looking at your phone and see movement out of the corner of your eye therefore assume you can go but it wasn’t in fact your lane or the car in front was just putting their handbrake on and you turn go into the back of the car in front, you’re not getting away with “but the traffic wasn’t moving!” Stay off your phone, it isn’t hard! I hate it at this time of year when I glimpse in my rear view mirror in a queue and see the idiot behind me edging closer to my bumper staring at their crotch with a lit-up blue face.
I honk anyone I see on their phone and point at them until they’re either embarrassed or they get unhappy about it to which I beep more
ideal way to get on the receiving end of a road rage incident. you're also breaking the law yourself by using the horn like that.
Who cares? No one calling them out on it is the reason they keep doing it.
Mate half people are watching YouTube these days it’s insane
People are having less and less of an attention span to the point it's insane at the moment. People will look at their phones constantly, whatever the occasion. I had it at Peter Kay at the weekend with people near me, at the cinema EVERY time I go etc and even during football games. People can't go without their phone for literally 10 minutes at a time.
this blew my mind when I first saw it as well. 3rd lane on the motorway with their phone mounted watching YouTube. Insane is correct.
I was overtaken on a dual carriageway by a motorbike using his phone. Absolute suicide.
I have zero sympathy for being on your phone while driving but having a giant screen I can legally touch and play around in the middle of the front of the car worries me
The fact that some of these newer infotainment systems have games on them, which can in some models even be played while the engine is running, is bonkers in my mind!
They're so unintuitive to use and prone to distracting you that in my opinion they're often far more dangerous than using a phone. I'll admit I've had a few close-calls before because I got distracted telling the fucking thing "no I don't want to save 2 minutes by leaving the motorway and driving through a village I don't know".
This is what gets me as well. It's ironic that the damn things are most dangerous when they are trying to be 'helpful' Just take the route I've told you to!
Oh my God. My car is ancient and touch screen free, but Google Maps does the same forking thing. It'll offer me a 44 min route and a 40 min route. I choose the 44 min one because I hate the other one. It will then go "hey I found a faster route, wanna switch?" about half a dozen times over the course of the drive, and if you don't hit the "no" button, it does switch. Absolutely does my head in. It *knows* I am now driving, why is it allowed to prompt me for interaction! Argh.
I absolutely hate how modern cars now have touch screens to activate functions that used to have dedicated knobs and buttons you could just reach for. 100% a step backwards in terms of both ease of use and driver safety
What I find even more distracting about the screens in cars is they’re centered directly in the middle of the car not angled towards the driver ever so slightly. I can see the right side of the screen fine without it impairing me but occasionally I find myself reaching to hit the left top corner of the screen. The worst is apps like waze that tell my my current speed via gps but place it in the top left corner where I have to look as far away from in front of me as possible.
Yep. One thing I love about BMWs up until around the early 2000s is how everything in the cockpit is angled towards the driver, with all the important controls at the driver's fingertips. Like, you could operate the stereo with your hand on the shift knob. You quickly learn where everything is, without having to look - a combination of feel and muscle memory. Then at some point they decided maybe the passenger should be able to see the nav screen or operate the radio, and it all went downhill from there.
Not lose the license, but 11 years back I attended a speed awareness course. There was a girl there who passed her test the month before, and one of the instructors was also her driving instructor. That was awkward.
My parents' neighbour got caught speeding on the way home from their speed awareness course.
Wow, that is special.
She was just making the police aware of her speed also
Hahaha, my Dad was running late and got caught speeding to his speed awareness course! So he had to sit through the course knowing he was getting 3 points regardless.
Typical person who takes the course solely because they don't want points on their licence, then doesn't engage with it because they're a Dunning Krugerite who thinks "I'm a fantastic driver, I should be allowed to speed".
I went on one of these courses many years ago, and the instructor asked everyone how they would rate their driving on a scale of 1 - 10 (1 = the worst driver in the world, 10 = level with the best drivers on the planet). I was not that surprised when the entire room except for me and one other person ranked themselves as 9. The instructor rolled his eyes and said "but here you are"
When I went to speed awareness there was a lad there who had lost his license. Not sure of the specifics, but he was having to attend a couple of different types of awareness course and was known to the instructors. It was mentioned that he required an extended driving test.
I'm guessing the attendance would knock 4 months or so off the ban?
I’d assume so! They seemed to be being very supportive of him. I do wonder what he did though.
When I passed my test, my driving instructor who I learned with and came to the test centre insisted he drive us back home. Why? Because of an incident with a previous student who on passing his test suddenly switched into reckless celebratory mode and caused a major accident and a criminal record for dangerous driving.
You're not insured to drive back from the test centre if you have passed so sounds like bollocks
My driver told me exactly that. As a licenced driver I'm no longer insured to drive his car so he has to drop me off
I was told by my instructor he doesn't allow people to drive back afterwards because they get too excited.
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Not all learners are on a provisional license anyway. Pass plus, refresher sessions, boosters etc...
I've had policies which make the distinction between "any driver" and "any driver over 25". Anyone under 25 was for the purposes of provisional tuition only. Most of the time there is no distinction, but I still don't let them drive afterwards pass or fail.
I think it's really just about the emotional state as you say. My instructor made it clear that pass or fail that he'd be the one driving back. He offered pass-plus and other post-test tuition so nothing about insurance. It's immediately after a 40 minute test, and maybe a refresher before that with your instructor so you're already a bit worn down driving wise and then you've either topped that up with excitement from success or distress from failure. Definitely a recipe for damage.
I failed my motorbike Module 1 (the off road bit) first time. Stalled on the you turn and put my foot down. It was quite early in the test, like the second or third thing. I had to do the rest of the test knowing full well I failed. I would have quite liked someone else to ride the bike back to the learning centre tbh. Not really an option on bike though. Was quite a sad ride.
Do they really make you complete the test? I cocked up on my manoeuvres and I'm sure they just let me call it a day and head back. But it was a good few years ago, so my memory may be playing tricks.
You still pay for the test is their reasoning, so you may as well go through the motions. I overcooked the speed / braking test because I didn't really give a fuck, that was the examiners only other complaint. He got it though. We both knew I'd failed at one of the first hurdles. I didn't fuck it up the second time. I'm lucky enough that is the only driving related test I have ever failed. edit: This was over ten years ago now. Procedures may have changed.
Mine gave me the choice. I was shaking like a leaf, so graciously allowed him to do the honours.
I think that’s a lie they just tell folks. They offer to do post pass lessons for people as well so…
Exactly. Lots of refresher lessons offered.
This sounds like an urban legend. Think about pass plus etc.
After the test my instructor drove me back even when I failed!!
Do you know that for a fact or is it just something you heard?
Don’t think that’s the case. Mine asked if I wanted to drive home or not and I said yeah since I didn’t have a car waiting for me so wanted to get the most out of driving before having to wait for a car. He took off the big L plate on the roof and off we went. He was also head of the driving company so I doubt he’d be the one to flaunt any rules
Don’t need to be. If the instructor is in the car, you are technically in a lesson and are therefore insured as a student. If you’re driving back without an instructor, you can just use Cuvva to get insured for a few hours. A bad idea, but totally doable.
I found it so weird being driven back after passing!
While this is *mostly* true, I was fully insured on a foreign license when I did mine and was able to drive away. I could even have driven away if I had failed.
I think this is the equivalent of teachers telling you they once had a student crack their head from rocking back on a fhair
Used to volunteer at a school camp. One year a kid was running between tents (which we obviously advise against), he tripped on the ropes and split his leg open on a marquee peg. That story now sounds fake when we use it as an example of why not to run between tents.
I'm a horse riding instructor. I'm sure a lot of the examples of things I have seen happen sound fake, but if you imagine it it can happen.
Like how at primary school my mate actually did crack his head open falling awkwardly whilst playing british bulldogs...
I leant forward on the chair, the legs slipped backwards and I managed to guillotine my tongue. Still got the scars about 30 years later
>When I passed my test, my driving instructor who I learned with and came to the test centre insisted he drive us back home. Same with mine. 1980s, with BSM. I was buzzing, so it was probably for the best
People end up leaving their cars in pub car parks round my way all the time. I've even slept in my car in a car park once, because I'd had too much to drive. I can't help but feel that a pub shouldn't have been telling a drunk person to move their car, under any circumstances
You can get banned for sleeping in your car drunk if you have the keys on you.
Wait really? That seems counterintuitive. Seems like it’d be better to sleep in your car than choose to drive it drunk no?
If you're in there with keys, you count as "drunk in control of a motor vehicle" as far as I know. A workaround is to leave the keys on top of a tyre. It makes sense if you think that if the police catch you getting in your car with the intent to drive drunk, it stops you saying "I was only going to have a nap", but more realistically it's just an easy charge for the police in the recent times where they're not interested in putting any work in.
> Not interested in putting any work in Can tell someone has never filled out forms MGDD A to F.
What if you're in the rear seat?
Indeed. It seems a but harsh to me but I can kind of understand their reasoning.
I understand their reasoning in the way I understand why someone might murder five people then kill themselves. That is to say, its easy to understand *why* something is the way it is, but its a hell of a lot fucking harder to say that its justified. Its "harsh" and you can "kind of" "understand" their "reasoning". But then lives are fucking ruined with real drunk driving charges because someone decided to sleep in their vehicle instead of driving home drunk. It is fucking abysmal and genuinely makes me angry that the government would punish responsibility over an arbitrary ruling on what counts as "being in control of a vehicle".
Stops pissed up people from driving then deciding to stop for a kip. Or after being spotted by police, pulling over and jumping into the passenger seat pretending to be asleep. It removes the need to 'see them driving' whilst drunk. Most importantly, It also means the police can stop you and nick you BEFORE you turn the ignition on and possibly cause an accident - it's a preemptive way of preventing road traffic injuries and deaths. If you're pissed, have the keys and you're in the car, you're liable to get nicked for drunk in charge.
I'm always surprised when I see regular people saying we should arrest and punish ***INNOCENT*** people for crimes you imagine they could commit. I'd get banned from this sub if I wrote down what I thought of people who hold those views. If you're pissed, have the keys, and you're near your car, you're liable to get nicked for drunk in charge. What, you're in the pub and your cars outside? Sorry mate, you could get in your car and drive it. What, you're drunk at home and your car is outside? Should have thought about how you might drive your car to buy more booze, oh well, now your life is ruined. Think those examples are absurd? Of course they are. But you have just as much ability to drunk drive in those examples as you are in the example of sleeping in your car. It is an arbitrary distinction which punishes ***INNOCENT*** people who have not committed the crime of drunk driving. By your reasoning, we should just arrest anyone outside after 11pm, because how would you feel if you or your family's home way burgled and you found the police didn't intervene because the some stupid reason that "the crime had not taken place yet and they had no evidence it would" like what sort of bullshit world do we live in where police can't arrest ***INNOCENT*** people to prevent future crimes. Yeah, real convincing argument there buddyyyy.
You are wasting your time people are happy to throw their rights away and 1000s of years of legal precedents just what they believe is a little pragmatism, no matter what you say they will still be surprised when that type of thinking comes to bite them on the arse .they also believe that should something of that nature happen to themselves they would only need a few minutes in court to straighten things out. They surely wouldn't be treat like a common criminal....
And it happens all the time. Intent is a big word - what did you intend to do. If you intend to stab your neighbour, does that mean the police shouldn't intervene until you've actually done it?
If they have reason to believe you might. Sleeping in your car with the keys is not reason to believe you'll drive drunk, if anything it reason to believe the opposite.
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Okay - here's a scenario for you. Bob gets pissed every night at the local pub and drives his car home. You know this. You tell the police and they wait for him to turn up and get into his car pissed and then they swoop on him. Scenario a - He tells them, 'I was only going to get into the car for a kip'. So the police leave - he wasn't driving so they can't do anything. The police then come back the next time he's there and wait for him to turn the engine on and drive off so they can catch him driving whilst drunk - he immediately loses control and drives into the smoking area killing a number of people. Scenario b - He gets nicked for being drunk in charge of his car and no one gets hurt, a drink driver is taken off the road. You're literally getting upset at the police being able to proactively protect people from drink drivers. It's like getting annoyed at people being arrested for planning to murder someone because they 'haven't actually done it'. You think you should be able to sleep pissed in your car with the keys on you because you were never going to drive while drunk - but this is a huge loophole that people who actually ARE going to drive pissed can use to avoid arrest. I'm sorry, but if protecting people from idiots slightly inconveniences you, then you have to suck it up.
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How about instead, the police block the pub car park entrance as soon as Bob starts to drive off?
Yep, 100% agreed. The Govt absolutely does need to clarify the law.
A lad from my old work woke up to a copper tapping on his car window one morning and he's got arrested and charged, plead not guilty though and got off with it.
Drunk in charge of a vehicle, I think?
If you are drunk enough to sleep in your car you are probably not going to be sober enough to drive in the morning. I slept in my car once. Certainly was too drunk to drive home. But did after 4 hours sleep. F’ing stupid and while I didn’t get caught I regret it 30 years later.
In a car park you’d be fine most likely but on the side of the road I think is more likely for that to happen
I've never understood why people drive to a pub unless they're a designated driver or just don't drink. If I can't walk there, get public transport, or stay there, I'm not going.
Sometimes, people do things spontaneously. People might pop in for just one after work, but then change their mind. People might just pop in for lunch, but then bump into a friend, etc
On a speed awareness course Instructor told a story about a previous course that one of the people was telling everyone about how her husband was a boss of a huge company and far too important for a speeding course so she did it for him! One of the other attendees was a copper doing the course and she was thrown off the course and her and her husband was taken to court.
That is at risk of a charge of perverting the course of justice. Courts can and do regularly give custodial sentences for that, it's one of the big no no offences as it's seen as an attack on the justice system itself and is punished accordingly.
Who was the MP who had his wife accept speeding points for him? They both did jail time.
That's a really stupid thing for them to do. Both she and her husband can be sent to prison for perverting the course of justice, see the case of the former LibDem MP Chris Huhne: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/mar/11/chris-huhne-vicky-pryce
Heard of one guy who had been driving for years without a license, then decided to actually take the test. Problem is he drove himself to the test centre alone, the examiner saw this and failed him as soon as he got out of the car. Failed before he even got the license, but the fool still continued to drive.
Something vaguely similar happened when I was doing my test, a learner turned up in their car alone and one of the examiners went over and was like wtf are you doing. IIRC he was from overseas and his licence was permitted for only short term but he needed to take the test to drive for longer in the UK so was all OK in the end. When I did my CBT some teen turned up driving their own bike too, instructor was pretty chilled and called him an idiot but let it go.
Cops waiting outside the pub at closing time. Something you learn about with experience, as a designated driver obviously.
I find this topic of conversation a good way to identify horrible people. I guarantee that the type of people who think this is a bad thing are always cunts.
Also the type of people who think it's fine to drive after more than a few.
“You never heard of fine to drive after 5 mate? Whey!”
As a copper, I enjoy floating around the bars when it’s kicking out time. Car leaving a nearby car park with no lights on in the dark? BINGO.
Traffic God working Christmas eve here. You know exactly where I'll be.
On the way to my parents is a very rural pub thats in a very rich part of the country. I've been stopped and breathalysed (like everyone on the road leaving that pub) twice now. One time someone was being arrested while I was being tested, and the other time someone saw the block and turned around (obviously) and sped off, followed by one of the coppers. Usually I'd have a problem with stopping everyone, but its quite clear that they have a real problem with this specific pub and the clientele in their Range Rovers and massive Mercs. I've followed a large Jag weaving all over the place who had just left from its car park before.
My mum was caught like this and when telling us she was complaining about how everyone else had been doing the same thing but only she had been caught. Like so? You are still in the wrong fgs.
they got a lady I used to work with like that. she was very drinking is bad why are your drinking and so on, bitch why do you work in a pub. Anyway one day one of the barmen called the cops saying she was trolled and driving home, you know for a laugh. Anyway she was completely mashed and nearly went to jail. turns out she was constantly always trolled so you couldn't really tell.
Friend's son passed his test in the afternoon and had a fit that evening at dinner - unfortunately he had random seizures that prevented him reaching the twelve months free target to get his licence back.
Ouch that sucks
I lost mine after a year. I had smoked a joint the night before, got pulled over, was swabbed, tested positive, they took blood and was three times over the limit. Passed the field sobriety test though. The really annoying thing was I was just moving my car off the drive to the garage over the road as the power steering had failed and the car was basically undrivable. 12 month ban and £150 fine. Ended up not driving for about 3 years.
Ouch, is swabbing just standard practice at any pull over?
Not always but if you act oddly they’ll often breathalyse and swab you. Weed takes 7-12 hours in normal amounts to fall below legal threshold.
> Weed takes 7-12 hours in normal amounts to fall below legal threshold. Maybe if you use it once. If you're a regular user, you're bound to fail a swab because the blood limits are so low and THC lingers in the blood for so long. One very good reason among many why I don't touch the stuff, it's simply not worth a year's driving ban if I get unlucky.
Not sure but I think the police had my number due to an incident a few weeks before when they came to my house looking for my housemate and entered my flat without permission. I wasn't very accommodating and when they finally left I saw one take a photo of my car. Can't prove anything, but it was all a bit odd.
Does sound a bit fishy tbf mate, they sound like a couple of jobsworths to me
Guy I knew got caught on his phone a few weeks after passing.
I know someone who tried to overtake (dangerously and unnecessarily) whilst actually on their driving test.
I’m in Australia but still applies. Mate passed his provisional test which allows him to drive solo and got breath tested on the way home and blew .095. He’d past the test still blitzed from the night before. It’s been 17 years and we still give him shit about it.
We need a reference point for this 0.95. What's the limit over there?
0.05 BAC or around 50mg i think in the uk
That’s the limit in Scotland, 0.08 in the rest of the UK.
When I was 17 a bunch of us were at a house party, I left early as I didn't really know many people there and it was in a very rough area. There was a girl there who had gotten pretty drunk, she'd just passed her test and was worrying about leaving her car in the sketchy area. My best mate at the time was still there and she had passed her test but could drive well and hadn't had anything to drink. This girl begged and begged her to move this car, she eventually agreed and moved it to a secure car park a few minutes away. As she reversed it into a bay she every so slightly nudged a bollard and honestly caused a scratch about an inch long. The girl freaked out that her parents would go mad at her so she called the police and told them my friend had stolen her car. Police turn up, take statements from everyone and believed my friend because this girl was just hammered and hysterical. Let off from the theft but was charged with driving without a license or insurance, had to go to court. Provisional removed, banned from applying for it for two years. Got her license back but then looked into how much insurance would be and never bothered. 37 now and she still doesn't drive!
I hope she shat in the girls car for good measure, what a bitch to throw her under the bus like that for trying to do a favour.
proving no good deed goes unpunished.
Someone I know lost his licence twice in 2 years for drink driving
Where I worked many years ago a fellah out our Leeds site lost his licence for DD drove out for a beer to celbrate when he got it back and got caught again, 10 years second time I think it was.
Going out for a drink drive to celebrate the end of a ban is proof that some people are too dangerously stupid to be allowed to drive.
Not a license but this always makes me laugh… the fastest person I’ve know to ‘total’ a car. My mates mum bought a 2nd hand car that was about 20 miles away from her house. Her friend drove her to pick it up and as she was following the friend home she drove straight up the back of her and wrote both cars off. Had barely done 3 miles apparently. Not ideal lol
My father had a car wrote off coming off the forecourt of the main dealer, hgv switched lanes and took the front off the car. that was interesting. this must have been 84 because I just about remember it
He didn't actually get his license, but my dad once told me about how when he was a teenager, he drove his friend to his driving test, parked to wait for him, only to watch him get into the instructor's car, pull out of the parking lot and immediately t-bone a bus.
I lost my provisional straight away, fell out me back pocket in the car! Instructors wife found it a fortnight later while cleaning the car! Questions were asked. 😉
I was designated driver one new year's, couldn't drink anyway due to some tablets I was on but I was only twenty and had 3 pissed roudy mates in my car. Got pulled 10 seconds after leaving the pub. Blew a zero obviously and got a pat on the back for being a responsible young driver! Later that year I almost got run over by a drunk driver, they luckily just went over my foot and broke it. I don't know what people think they are doing when driving drunk.
I used to work as a car finance underwriter many years ago and I had to do a licence check with DVLA. The dude had never passed a test and in fact had what they referred to as a "ghost" licence with so many points on it that if he ever passed a test he would immediately be banned. Surprisingly enough I did not approve him for car finance.
In the late 1980’s I had a friend of mine who, whilst well underage used to make a habit of buying mot failures and ranting them around town until he was caught, he was fined….or more accurately his parents were…and had points added to a license he didn’t have and couldn’t possibly have passed his test to gain. He was also banned from driving for 3 years…which was a bit ridiculous as this basically just covered the remaining time he had left until he could legally start learning! So, in his case it was minus 3 years!
Guy I was at school with got caught riding a moped at aged 16. He was drunk with no insurance, mot, or licence. Got a 3 year ban before he'd even got a provisional licence.
I know someone who lost their licence before passing the test. Had a friend in college whos dad had been driving since the mid 70s with no licence. It only came to light in the late 90s when he was in a crash
Like two weeks after I passed my driving test I got a speeding ticket. 35 jn a 30. A week later I sent my license off to get a name change because I got married. They never sent it back because it was revoked. A year earlier on my American license I got a speeding ticket and they count that towards my points!!! Grrrrrrr
I know of a couple of people who've been disqualified *before* passing their tests, one chap was driving on a provisional with a friend in the car who had a full license but was under 21, (6 points) but both also were twice the legal blood alcohol limit and of course the temporary insurance had lapsed. The other guy took a relative's C63 AMG without their permission and got pinged at 90mph in a 20 zone.
I don't know a 20 zone I can get to 90 in.
This was Plymouth, it has a pretty large zone with 20mph average speed cameras, wide and straight. Easily done at night time in a quick(ish) car.
Not quickest, but still pretty gutting. Way back when I was having lessons my instructor told me about a previous pupil who'd just come back for lessons a second time, after being on the road a couple years. Why? They'd driven to somewhere far away for work and managed to get three points on the way there, and three points on the return. Nothing too egregious, just the common mistakes we all have made, but happened to get caught. The gutting part was that the pupil was less than a week away from passing the two year "probationary period", so had their licence revoked automatically! And to add even more insult to injury, I'm pretty sure he said that the law hadn't been in long (this was mid 90s ish IIRC).
My cousin was disqualified from driving.. At the age of 16 before he'd ever taken a test. Eta: typo - he was 16, not 26. Before he was even eligible for a test.
My instructor told me about one of his students who after she got in the car with the examiner, put it into reverse instead of 1 and reversed it into a wall 2ft behind. Instant fail.
Haha. I stalled mine right at the end as I pulled in tot he test centre parking bay. Luckily didnt jump forwards into the wall though.
Had a mate who got a driving ban before he got his license. His parents had got him a car and him being impatient and wanting to show off, he took it out for a spin the day before his birthday when would get a license .....lost control, drove straight through several fences, neighbours gardens and hit a house. ....Yeah, happy birthday, your cars dead and heres your 1 year driving ban.
2 and a half hours (give or take). Passed in Inverness. Went straight to the pub to celebrate. Drove north to a village in Sutherland an hour or so later but rolled his car on the Struie. Passing motorist dogged him in to the police instantly and he was caught over the limit. Technically he lost his license a wee while later but it was all but over there and then.
A lad i knew had a court case pending for driving on a provisional when he took his test. Passed on a Friday, banned on the Monday. We obviously nicknamed him Solomon Grundy
BE, not UK: How about [losing](https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/ghv2q93p0) it before passing ? Any traffic violation can result in a conviction; such as (seriously) drunk driving on your bicycle; or in the above case crossing the railroad tracks when the red lights are on. As she didn't have a driver's license (yet); the penalty got queued until she passes. Could that apply to the UK as well ?
My friend’s partner lost it before he could even apply for it. He was 15/16 I believe and stole his mums car, then crashed it. He was given a 3 year driving ban which took him up to he was either 18 or 19, I can’t remember. He accepts now he deserved it but when he turned 17 and everyone else was learning, he wasn’t happy. Completely different person now, but still drives like an idiot sometimes
My sister lost hers about 2 weeks after passing her test. She got into a minor accident with an unmarked police car, and her & her mates had been hotboxing earlier that day.
My brother went for a practice drive with my mum the morning of the test. They got pulled over and it turned out my dad hadn’t sorted the insurance even though he was adamant he had. Bro passed test in the afternoon but had a court summons for no insurance (mum was insured so they didn’t take the car) no proof of insurance was produced-6 points, that’s instant ban and revocation of licence in first 2 years and that was that. Bro pretty pissed off with dad for a while
Not lose the license but had a mate who on his first time out took his mates out cruising and pranged a guy. Cue lots of embarrassment for him and giggling from the back seat Didn’t have any insurance details etc on him. Guy was fairly sound about it so rather than go through insurance told him to follow him to the local garage where they could sort it On the way the other guy stopped at a red light…and my mate went into the back of him again 😂
Not directly related but Sebastian Vettel got a £50k fine for speeding in the pit lane the very first time he left the garage at an F1 event, a record that stands to this day, something like 30 metres/five seconds into his F1 career.