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EU wants over 70s to prove they can still drive every five years (www.brusselstimes.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/europe@feddit.de
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The European Union wants elderly people (70+) to undergo medical tests from now on to prove that they are still capable of driving a car every five years. However, the proposal has been met with a lot of criticism.

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[โ€“] 1 point 3 years ago (3 children)

Lol... First they came for the people doing 20 over, and I don't drive 20 over, so I said nothing. Then they came for the ones doing 15 over, and I don't do 15 over, so I said nothing...

You're talking about applying fees and profits to people deemed "less safe" by some arbitrary measurement, and assuming that said fees and profits will never be applied to you because you meet what will be the likely initial standard, but you're assuming the arbitrary measurement will remain fixed... And it absolutely will not.

The thing is, the revenue you're suggesting as an incentive to avoid those behaviors will become a documented and budgeted source of revenue for someone, somewhere, and if your pie in the sky works, and said revenue reduces because the roads get safer, the people who've budgeted that revenue will be incentivised to tighten the restrictions to regain the revenue loss, all in the name of safety, of course...

Of course, you have nothing to worry about if you're willing to comply with the increasingly restricting goalposts...

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    Firstly it was a hypothetical. I made that pretty clear.

    Second i literally said in my comment that we would need to define was considered unsafe driving so it wasn't overly critical or unjust. So there would be nothing arbitrary about it.

    You raise a good point about the revenue becoming budgeted but that is something that would be taken into account if such a system was ever devised. The revenue would have to be spent subsidising safe drivers lower insurance fees and be an acceptable loss in the event that unsafe drivers become safe drivers. At least it should not be considered as profit.

    I accept that i know very little about these systems so i cant really talk about how they would work but to be honest if you are more concerned about who profits feom unsafe drivers increased insurance premiums than making roads safe then im not sure you should have a say either.

    Also we already have optional black boxes to lower insurance costs in the UK so there is a precedent for this and thst might be a good starting point. They must already be considering the fluctuations in profits for those insurance packages.

    Ultimately i was preaenting a hypothetical and i wasnt willing to die on that hill.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    You don't have to die anywhere ;)

    It's got merit, and quite a few US insurers have similar programs, either via an OBD port dongle or through an app. My wife has an app on her cell phone that monitors her driving, and mainly cell usage, and frankly, I think that specifically is a hell of a good metric for safety these days.

    I like it as an incentive. I DONT like it as a matter of law or policy, for previously state reasons.

    You don't gotta die on any hills though, I come for the simple discourse and don't consider disagreement to be hostility. I just got removed resting comment syndrome or some shit I think ;)

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