Driving test re-sits at 80

Published: 21 May 2010

• AS older drivers I understand we are safer than most other groups but we do have a responsibility to make sure our driving ability is up to scratch, hence eye tests, questions about health and periodic renewal of driving licence. 

I feel that in principle it would be good if we took an up-to-date driving test at, say, the age of 80 because the test and driving conditions have changed so dramatically since most of us originally took it. Of course, from day-to-day we will have kept up with the changes but taking a driving test, or at least some form of refresher course, could be quite salutary for most of us.

I sympathise with local historian Mary Cosh: it does seem she was treated too aggressively by the police officer who stopped her, without listening to her explanation that she had intended to stop as soon as there was a space between parked cars to draw in to (Driver: ‘I was treated like criminal but all I did was clip wing mirror,’ May 7). 

She has now been told she must take a driving test but has had no formal notification of the grounds for this. Effectively, she is required to pay a penalty, without being accused of anything. All sounds a bit high-handed, very different from the image we are given of our friendly neighbourhood policing. 

It is emotive to equate clipping a wing mirror in a narrow street with “next time it could be a child” (First, you hit a wing mirror. Next time it could be a child, May 14). Why a child? Those poor children do get dragged into all sorts of arguments. Why not just say “person”?

Pauline Lord
Noel Road, N1 

• IT appears that architectural historian Mary Cosh was recently flagged down by police and told she must re-take the driving test, because she allowed the wing mirror of her car to clip the wing mirror of a stationary car, in spite of the fact that neither mirror was damaged.

This may seem a trivial matter for the Tribune, when there are such important things going on in London. 

But the same could be said of the action by the police, who surely have better things to do than to pursue such a minor traffic incident in which no damage was done.

Harley Sherlock
N1

• I WOULD like to thank Angela Sinclair-Loutit for her spontaneous and kindly letter of support in last week’s Tribune. 

May I also assure the two other ladies who wrote that this case is not just a grouse by a disgruntled oldie, but a matter of common justice.

I was accused by an aggressive police officer of being “unfit to drive a car” following the minor accident of scraping a car’s wing mirror with my own wing mirror in Lofting Road.

Instead of the expected follow-up by the police, the matter was (apparently by common practice) referred to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), which then went into a mechanical process without once giving any specific explanation, and only referring to a police statement.

Without accusing me, it ordered me to take a medical examination with no reason or even result given. Now I must sit a new driving test – still no reason given.

Like the unfortunate character in Kafka’s The Trial, I am, as it were, condemned “for an unstated offence”, not even being told what it was.

It is now all too likely that, despite 50 years driving with a perfectly clean record and despite numerous refresher driving lessons to prevent small but vital lapses, I shall fail the test and my work will be seriously affected.

Age has little to do with it; ability is a matter of general health, activities and a positive attitude to life.

I should add, however, that after I had a burglary a few weeks ago the police were extremely helpful, for which I am very grateful.

Mary Cosh
N1