The problem, unfortunately, is political. Doctors have become accustomed to the idea that they are owed a 'good living' wage and should not have to work to get it.
So my local surgery charges �50 just for a 'professional' signature such as one 'needs' for a passport etc. (their practice nurse whose signature is equally 'professional' charges �25 and my neighbour who is also a nurse does it as a favour.)
What really annoys me is that the surgery double charges. They put down all the parts of the test on their return of things done: blood pressure, urine, eyesight etc which enables them to qualify for their preventitive care bonus payments from the government. It is understandable when one sees how everyone else stretches the definition of professional behaviour, from MPs to Banks to Supermarkets to Local Government officials.
Meanwhile I can fly a plane on an NPPL under self certification.
However, what we would really need to know is how many people fail their medical because serious problems are detected (high blood pressure for example) recognising that kart racing is far more stressful over ten minutes than hours, if not days, of driving on the roads. ( I wore a monitor once for a session and the results indicated more effort than playing squash and a surprising number of people die on a squash court). The other thing is that the real purpose of the medical is to 'prove' that the person attends their doctor regularly enough to have some idea how healthy they really are. Since many drivers will drive regardless of injury, illness or impediment, would you believe 'self-certification'. Or, if your child was killed / seriously or permanently injured because someone lied about being affected by medical causes ( a clause on every race entry form), would you want to take the sick driver to court for compensation.
As a pilot, there is a 12 hour minimum between "bottle and throttle", but how often have we seen drivers drinking heavily round the barbeque as part of karting's social scene and climbing into a kart to race when they would still probably fail a breath test?
So perhaps we need to adjust karters' attitudes as well as the fees for medicals.
As for an annual licence, I agree in principal, but think that there is a very real difficulty. At the moment the office staff just have to check that the big red letters are the same as the year, so from January all licences are '2014'. I can imagine the difficulty if they had to check the day and the month as well....and the complaints when a driver is 'only a day' overdue, begging the club to make an exception on the grounds of common sense and a child's disappointment. Longer queues at signing on at *AM of a Sunday morning?
Again, you would have to adjust karters' attitudes as well as the technical implementation.
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