So after 5 pages , we have pinpointed that 1997 was the pivotal year. Before that we are all expert drivers. After that you are all drivers lacking common sense, ability, keeping your distance from vehicle in front and anticipation etc.(i.e. model BMW drivers). 
We need to find out what happened that year and more importantly which party was in power so they can be blamed. 
Use a recovery truck to get this car moved.
Then there were people like my dad who never took a test, as it wasn't a requirement when he got a car. Or people of a certain age who were in the army.
I guess they have had to tighten up because driving standards have clearly dropped (a trip on any UK commuter motorway shows that, or driving through Milton Keynes - but then most of the non-UK people there probably don't have a licence), and roads have become busier, faster places.
'My' generation (ie, codgers) cope better in winter, remember to prepare, and drive to those conditions. Because we have experience of proper winters. Look at the kids in their chavved up shitboxes last winter, getting stuck everywhere, and nothing for warmth beyond a t-shirt and a baseball cap.
Trouble is, my' generation has bred a generation of me-me-me idiots, who don't care/consider anything but themselves, and will pull out in inappropriate gap, or make manuovers with no warning/signalling to other road users.
This makes the roads a dangerous place, thus the do-gooders have to meadle. I agree with the bike restrictions introduced in the mid 90s. I mean, at 17yrs old, I could jump on the worlds fastest bikes that Yamaha and Kawasaki were throwing out at the time (with emphasis on speed, not handling or stopping
), which was plain crazy. Even the smaller bikes, being 2 stroke, were bonkers.
Another factor, again based around the difference in society, was a closer knit family, and it was less common to move out before getting married, and less common to move far from the family home. And money was harder to come by.
This meant that we couldn't afford cars at 18yrs old. It was a bike, and if you had a job (remember it was well over 3m unemployed), your bike had an engine
. You were taught how to drive properly by dad/older brothers, not taught how to pass a test by a businessman just interested in statistics. Specifically, I remember the first time I towed a trailer I had dad with me (telling me, rightly, to slow down), and the first 'big' thing I towed (legally
), a speedboat, I had my oldest brother with me (I had towed this previously, from around the age of 15, but always on, presumably, private land where we used to go water skiing, again, initially, with supervision). Towing and being towed in cars on tow-ropes, well, I worked at British Telecom for years, and that was a very regular occurance
Today is different, and we all need to accept that. There are certainly more arrogant tossers on the road, who care not about others. Our children do get cars at 18, and are only taught how to pass an arbitary test. Our children have limited roadskills at this point, as we drive them to/from everywhere, and in the back seat (my niece recently failed her test because she didn't have a clue where places were in her own town), rather than making them learn the Green Cross Code, and sending them everywhere on their bikes, including doing the shopping. And us old codgers would fail the driving test for using the gears to slow down. We pepper our cars with airbags, ABS, ESP, TC to make our children safe, yet cannot account for when they overstep what the electronics can recover from.
Imagining some of the younger drivers I see on the road being allowed to drive Cargos and the like scares the shit out of me.
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Topic: Towing an uninsured, untaxed, unMOT'd car (Read 8612 times)