Apathy Sketchpad

Since Britain has one of the worst records in Europe for road traffic accidents, it is only natural that the government want to do something about it. Furthermore, since the government is a large organisation, it is only natural that they will make a complete mess of it. First, they introduced a theory test. Since this test was almost easy enough for trained chimps to pass (indeed, the only person I ever saw fail was after I took mine, he got into the lift, shouted “dammit, I’ve failed again,” and proceeded to press for entirely the wrong floor but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that) their next step was to add an extra bit onto it.

Unfortunately, a little research into what causes accidents in the first place might be in order, and the shocking truth is that most road traffic accidents are caused either by pedestrians, or by people who already own a driving license. Consequently, increasing the price and difficulty of the driving test is only going to annoy students, a pursuit which also seems to be rather high on the government’s agenda this term. A better solution would be to make the test easier, more standardised, and compulsory every five years or so. This would force people to stay in good habits (such as indicating sometimes). After that, the police should move all their speed cameras to places where people actually speed and cause accidents, from their current position wherever they think they’ll make most money.

Once these steps are complete, the morons who drive to fast must be targeted directly. Garages should have to report the registration plate to the police of any front-wheel-drive car they are asked to fit a rear spoiler onto, or any car they are asked to fit an exhaust extension onto (I mean the ones which leave a tiny bottleneck and then balloon out to the size of a dustbin lid solely in order to make noise). Then, the police arrest the customer, the car is taken away for police auction, and the money they used to pay for the modifications would be spent moving speed cameras to sensible locations near junctions. It is my opinion that people who deliberately modify their cars in order to make them demonstrably worse are the sort of people who should not own cars, in much the same way that the sort of people who most want to own guns are the sort of people least suited to do so.