A quick Google suggests the salary is around £30,000, which would put it above the living wage. It’s not an amazing salary, but let’s say that got bumped to £40,000 and then you’d need to hire probably at least 10x the number of examiners to be able to cope with the demand, then suddenly that gets very expensive.
There’d be arguments about whether it’s actually financially worth it and whether there’s even though labour supply to achieve the number of examiners required.
So, you want to discourage people from taking tests, which will result in: fewer people driving and, of those who do drive, more of them driving without a license? How do you plan on replacing the transport for those people who decide they aren’t going to drive - will that be improving public transport? How would that happen?
Making it harder for poorer working people to get to work. This would be yet another cost that people have to face. Those that can’t afford to re-take it but need their car to get to work would end up criminalised.
Making it harder for poorer working people to get to work.
Poor people are less likely to drive because they can’t afford to get a car. I never learnt because I didn’t have £1000s to get insured, didn’t even bother looking at the other costs involved because the numbers were so far beyond anything I could even consider.
Was only in my late 20s that I even replaced the bike from my teens, by the time I replaced it most of the gears didn’t work anymore. Sure, some poor people do drive, but far more rich people do. Just looking at stats for household car ownership by area clearly shows it, I live in a large town and the rich side of town is >95% vehicle ownership and around 20% have 3 or more. My street is 27% of households have no vehicles, the most deprived areas of town are majority of households don’t own a vehicle.
I repeated this with every town I have ever lived in and while the numbers vary the same trends apply every time.
People have to pay for their tests, so the cost would come out of that. Less than +25% fee presumably given that the other costs like the car won’t be changing to pay them more.
A good start, but I think it should be more than just an eye test.
Here’s my opinion: everyone should have to take a refresher course and test every ten years, dropping to 5 years at 60.
How are you going to recruit new examiners? (there is currently a shortage)
Paying a living wage would be a good start
A quick Google suggests the salary is around £30,000, which would put it above the living wage. It’s not an amazing salary, but let’s say that got bumped to £40,000 and then you’d need to hire probably at least 10x the number of examiners to be able to cope with the demand, then suddenly that gets very expensive.
There’d be arguments about whether it’s actually financially worth it and whether there’s even though labour supply to achieve the number of examiners required.
Cars are expensive by their nature. Pass the costs onto the drivers.
So, you want to discourage people from taking tests, which will result in: fewer people driving and, of those who do drive, more of them driving without a license? How do you plan on replacing the transport for those people who decide they aren’t going to drive - will that be improving public transport? How would that happen?
Yes, don’t need to read any further.
Making it harder for poorer working people to get to work. This would be yet another cost that people have to face. Those that can’t afford to re-take it but need their car to get to work would end up criminalised.
Poor people are less likely to drive because they can’t afford to get a car. I never learnt because I didn’t have £1000s to get insured, didn’t even bother looking at the other costs involved because the numbers were so far beyond anything I could even consider.
Was only in my late 20s that I even replaced the bike from my teens, by the time I replaced it most of the gears didn’t work anymore. Sure, some poor people do drive, but far more rich people do. Just looking at stats for household car ownership by area clearly shows it, I live in a large town and the rich side of town is >95% vehicle ownership and around 20% have 3 or more. My street is 27% of households have no vehicles, the most deprived areas of town are majority of households don’t own a vehicle.
I repeated this with every town I have ever lived in and while the numbers vary the same trends apply every time.
People have to pay for their tests, so the cost would come out of that. Less than +25% fee presumably given that the other costs like the car won’t be changing to pay them more.
We can use all the European examiners that are highly qualified… Oh wait 😦.
🙃
While I agree, the logistics involved in that are significant.
The sliding scale is a good idea. If all they’re doing is eyes, over 80 probably should have it annually. Stuff happens quickly.
A physical test, too