Your views on the news: Young drivers, rail fiasco and 4G for summer

Guardian readers give their views in a comments on the West Coast Mainline fiasco and restrictions on new drivers
West coast mainline
As the west coast mainline crisis unfolds, our readers debate the news Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Should new drivers not be allowed on the road after 11pm?

Many young learners, new drivers and parents gave their views after the Association of British Insurers called for an overhaul of licensing to reduce 'tragic waste' of young lives on the roads.

Sydney said:

I also used green P plates for 6 months after passing my test. I was advised by a police officer to take them out because "people drive like pricks if they think you're inexperienced" he said that people with P plates get rear-ended by so called 'experienced' drivers who are too busy tailgating to pay attention to the road
Again its very obvious when driving near the test centre where I live that experienced drivers act like pricks around learners. If there's an L plate keep your bloody distance - they are likely to stop suddenly or have uneven acceleration - its not a difficult concept to grasp


I disagree.
I live in a country where it's compulsory to do a minimum of 30 hours training, plus theory, plus driving around cones in a car park before being allowed into traffic, plus a first aid examination. Only qualified instructors are allowed to teach you to drive. The standard of driving here is a great deal worse than in the UK, where I passed my test first time (more than 20 years ago) after only six paid lessons, thanks to informal lessons from friends and family.

whimsy24 wrote:

I'm 24 and currently learning to drive. The most dangerous and distracting thing I find on the roads are the impatient drivers (of all ages) who frequently overtake me in dangerous spots, exceed speed limits and cut up cyclists at every opportunity. I doubt this proposal will cure the impatience of a nation.

Darjc9 said:

The P plate is a good idea. I'm 23 and have almost 6 years of driving experience. When I was learning and freshly passed my parents constantly told me the first year of qualified driving was when you truly learned how to drive. I took little notice but as a more matured driver now I completely agree. I think the P plate should be displayed no shorter than 12 months as a means to warn other drivers.
Personally, I just think the practical test in this country is shockingly easy. 30-40 minutes in a car isn't long enough to display suitable capability. I was surprised in 2006 when I finished my test as to how little I felt I'd been tested.
Make the test longer and much more difficult, as a result people will be forced to learn for longer. It's utterly ludicrous that you can pass a test having not displayed night time driving, rain/wind/ice control or motorway skills.
Tests should be limited as well with regard to re-takes. After 3 re-takes you should be forced to wait a year and procure more hours of experience with a qualified teacher. If you can re-take after re-take, inevitably the learner will pass after a fluked 30 minute test yet be scarily incapable on the roads.


These are reasonable suggestions from the perspective of actuaries, but ignores some fundamental issues associated with driving. The costs here are phrased in terms of lives saved, but we must also recognize the social cost of delaying and preventing licensing. Currently about 35% (2010 number) of 17-20 year olds have licenses. Of those without licenses only 6% say they don't want one (as opposed to 60% in other age categories). This means the existing framework is placing a significant damper on licenses already due to costs (both the cost of learning to drive and the cost of insurance once license is obtained). Further reducing the incentive to get a license without also addressing some of the cost issues will be detrimental to young people's abilities to contribute to society and to gain valuable experiences.
I think we would all agree that two substantial factors contributing to young drivers and accidents are a lack of experience and a relative lack of judgement. Graduated driving schemes are a good idea, especially if they provide drivers with cost incentives (which could be done by the insurers alone if they wanted to). Such schemes should encourage drivers to learn how to drive through on-the-road driving and perhaps take some of the judgement issues out of the driver's hands (though prohibiting night-time driving ignores the fact that the jump in accident rates is really during certain parts of the night such as 2-5 am when young drivers are 17X as likely as mature drivers to have accidents).


I feel there should definitely be restrictions on new drivers, in relation to speed and carrying passengers. My daughter was killed by a driver who had passed his test a month before. He was racing with two mates, one of whom had passed his test the day before. They were all carrying passengers, egging them on. Two of these passengers were also killed. Need I say more?

0ggers said:

Rubbish. I didn't see the phrase 'hazard perception' anywhere. Young drivers don't have much but it can be taught. It can even be done on a simulator - youngsters like that kind of thing, and respond readily to training and doctrine.
Limiting their time on the roads will only limit the rate at which they develop these skills for themselves and thereby spread the risk over a longer period.

teentrack added:

Great idea, for most young drivers it's a case of "how soon after my 17th birthday can I be driving" not "am I capable of driving after only a few lessons"
Young drivers need to experience different road conditions, weather and be taught how to anticipate new situations with the guidance of experienced drivers. For example, wet roads, snow, dusk, bright sunshine, built up areas etc . This is best done with the guidance of experienced drivers who can help them through the experience, so that when they are driving on their own they will hopefully know how to react.
In Australia, new drivers are only allowed to carry one passenger as statistics show that the more passengers the higher the risk of crashes and fatalities. It should be adopted here. Anything that reduces deaths can only be a good thing.

On the West coast mainline fiasco

Our commenters had much to say about the news of the west coast mainline decision.

Dromo says:

In this post I'm not taking sides on the question of whether or not the railways should be re-nationalised but as someone who once was in charge of the bidding process for a number of public service contracts (not in the UK) I'd like to ask how many times has the DfT evaluated bids for franchises since the railways were privatised.
One could imagine elementary mistakes like the present one being made in the early days but by now they should have a formal procedure in place that covers all the relevant aspects of how to evaluate the bids properly.
If the officials in the DfT do not have a set of instructions on how to do this then they are incompetent.
If they do have a procedure and it doesn't work after all this time then they are incompetent.
If it is a good procedure and they haven't been following it properly then they are incompetent.
Judging by the Government's long-standing record of mega disasters in the procurement and execution of major projects (just look at IT, for example) one suspects that this particular mess is not the only one where the evaluation of rail franchises bids has been flawed.


I've been involved in bidding (on both sides). If I was to favour one bidder over the other because they had wined and dined me and offered me a job after I left my current position, I would be immediately fired and reported to the police for fraud (in the case of public contracts), in all probability.
Remove the lobbyists from the process. Ban ministers from taking up positions with any of the bidders for ten years following the tender. Use a stakeholder bid-marking process (where senior front-line managers consider the pros and cons in a formal framework, with the identities of the bidders removed), proper independent costings by independent accountants. I could go on.


Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Rail is to receive £1.4bn of taxpayers' money in return for operating services on the West Coast Main Line between London and Glasgow.
The massive public subsidy over the next five years stands in stark contrast to the £1.3bn which Great North Eastern Railways is struggling to pay the Exchequer for being re-awarded the franchise to run trains between London and Edinburgh.
Under a plan drawn up at the time of privatisation in 1996, Sir Richard's rail interests, which include the sprawling CrossCountry franchise, should have been making contributions to the Treasury, rather than the other way round. Virgin has received well more than £1.5bn from the state since 2002-03 in subsidy and in compensation because of Railtrack's failure to upgrade the west coast line.

jimlad adds:

It was Christian Wolmar who pointed out the subsidies to the privatised rail net work was roughly four times greater than the comparable cost under British Rail.
This whole process from its conception in 1993 to the present day as been a omni shambles. Costing us billions in subsidies for a poorer service.
The NHS will in the years to come make Conservative incompetence in rail privitisation look like a walk in the park. They will happily use taxpayers money as a subsidy to private companies rather than use the money to improve the services we all rely on. Either that or cut the service and use the money saved to give tax cuts to those who least need it. They may have people interests at heart but those interests aint the average taxpaying public.

4G across the UK

Commenters shared their experiences of mobile phone networks after it was announced the UK will have nationwide 4G services running on multiple networks by the end of next summer.

Barham said:

4G eh? Great news. Now, in my village of 5,000 people, only 8 miles from a major city (i.e. it's not like I'm in the wilds of the Outer Hebrides or something) we have a 2G signal that is non existent most of the time, 3G is a pipedream and now they're talking about 4G coming. What jolly japes.


When we get 4G people will be able to burn their way through their 500MB data cap in minutes! Mobile data: too slow, too expensive, too unreliable. Given our experience of 3G I can't see any of that changing.


As I don't even get 3G just outside Bolton then I'm not sure why I should care. Will 4G be rolled out further and faster than 3G?


We have 4G here in Toronto & I have been tethering my phone to my laptop & have been getting a steady 18 Mps which is pretty good for my requirements. A noticeable step up from 3G.


I only have 2G so I couldn't care less about 4G. I think the space should have been used for new digital channels on Freeview, both HD and SD. Instead of 4G wasting bandwidth which would be better spent increasing the speed on proper broadband.

One big problem with 4G is that many Freeview viewers will need filters on their systems costing another couple of hundred quid - after they were already forced to spend on digitial equipment by the Blair government who wanted switch-over to happen quickly.


Don't hold your breath for 4G. Here in Sweden (#1 country for internet according to the Tim BL Index), we've had it for 1 year. Speed tests in central Stockholm show an increase of 3-5 Mbs (for 3G) to about 8-13 Mbs (for 4G).

Okay it's an improvement but's it not revolutionary. The Telcos are already looking forward to 5G or WIMAX standards as people are complaining that 4G doesn't even come close to the fibre optic rates most people have in their homes.


What the hell has 4G got to do with Culture, Media and Sport? Where's the minister for Post and Telegraphs?

Thanks for all your contributions this week.