The thing is David, we have evolved to this level of "freedom". We never used to work that far from our homes, we used to shop on foot or by bus and travel in our cars together. Tesco and others only started killing the High Street by building out of town Supermarkets when WE became more and more mobile. Of course food is cheaper as a result, but is it better? There's no competition so your fad tasting fruit and veg is ripening in the crates instead of the twig because of the industrial quantities purchased by the Supermarkets and the distances it has to travel from source.
And I do support the freedom, don't get me wrong, I like the fact that almost every adult person on this small island can at any one time travel individually in his/her own car! Actually I personally don't know many people without driving license! I also know a few that shouldn't have one but they do. Most of the homes I know have at least 1car per adult head!
But, because of this increase in car ownership and mobility we are overcrowding the roads and making more and more demands on the environment, which is why I think it is well overdue a tightening of the test, a sort of measure to slow down the growth, as well as regulate the skill required to drive in a tighter, more dense traffic more often! We need to re-learn how we conduct ourselves in a crowd as our beloved personal space gets smaller and smaller!
In racing terms we only worry about the novices at the start, which is why we put them at the back, as once past the first corner/lap we tend to put distance between us and them and we don't worry about again until we come to lap them, which again is dealt with by way of the Blue Flag. Now think of it this way: if there were huge grids, say 60-70, and at least 1/3 were novice or inexperienced, would we not worry more about them to the extent that we'd want to train them better before allowing them on the track at full pelt?
Am I making sense? You only need on the road those that can and those that need to drive. The others can survive as passengers and pedestrians the same way we all did before the advent of mass produced cars!
IMHO of course.
Dan
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