'Drivers can only learn skills by experience' - Your Letters: February 17

BIG REVIEW OF DRIVING NEEDED TO AVOID CRASHES

I am somewhat frustrated at trying to send the following letter to the Transport Minister. As requested, I have sent the letter to Cat Eccles, my local MP. I hope I shall get a response at some stage but I am not holding my breath.

I am 84 years old and have been driving, mostly professionally, for 65 years, covering several hundred thousand miles.

As you can imagine I have observed all sorts of unbelievable driving.

I have recently been vaguely following the machinations about the tragedy of deaths of young drivers and passengers, including some from this region. Like many young people who start driving I studiously read the Highway Code, mostly in order to pass my test.

After that it was years before I read it again.

You can tell young people what the law says but in most cases it is likely to be the last thing on their mind.

I have always thought that putting so much emphasis on stopping distances in car lengths, feet or metres was ludicrous.

Drivers will always find out their stopping distances by hitting something, or somebody.

Drivers can only learn skills by experience.

The only solution, to my mind, is the introduction of state of the art driving simulators in every secondary school.

Pupils can then voluntarily learn what a car does when you treat it in a certain way when on the road.