I forget who said it the other day: people aren’t interested in driving any more.
They told me some statistics: nearly two million people used to learn to drive in the UK every year. These days, only three-quarters of a million do so. I looked it up. If you go to some websites, you’ll see a similar statistic quoted. The numbers of new drivers are dropping off a cliff. But, as you know, it’s a post-fact world, and thankfully (and not to put too fine a point on it) it’s all nonsense.
In the 2007-2008 financial year, 1,762,148 driving tests were conducted. By 2014-2015, that had fallen to 1,532,504. A small drop, but only half the story. More than half of all those people failed their tests, and an increase in the pass rate between those years – from a terrible 44.2% to a still terrible 46.9% – meant that 718,711 people gained a driving licence in 2014-2015, down from 779,207 people in 2007-2008.
Fewer, yes, but not to the extent that, if you were a car manufacturer, you’d start to panic about running out of people being able to drive them.
In fact, the figures say more about the economy than the appeal or necessity of driving. Since 2012- 2013, the number of people learning to drive has been on the increase, as we exit the credit crunch/global recession/financial crisis/insert your preferred cliché here years. Numbers this year are up again on last year’s.
But, still, the end of the need for a licence might yet come. Volkswagen created its ride-hailing brand, Moia, as it moves towards being not just a car company but a mobility company. Eventually there will be a stream of autonomous VWs, electrically powered, shuffling through cities, picking up people who have no will to drive themselves.
Volkswagen isn’t alone. Ford is already doing the same thing. In some US cities you can hail a Ford vehicle – although at the moment it comes with someone at the wheel and is powered by a combustion engine – but the plan is that, one day, it’ll just whirr to where you are.
The drive (sorry) towards autonomy has finally begun in earnest, then, as two of the world’s biggest car makers throw their considerable weight behind reducing the need for you to actually own one of their products. Instead, you’ll just rent or hire one, without taking the wheel. With Paris, Mexico City, Athens and Madrid saying they’ll ban diesel cars from those cities by 2025, and as others will doubtless follow as they attempt to improve air quality, it’s not a bad move.
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I have
This driver is no more, he has ceased to be. He is an ex-driver.
I reckon the government
I have to say, I've been
- The roads are much busier.
- The growth of speed cameras, stupid regulation, poorly designed junctions makes it more stressful.
- The standards of driving have deteriorated massively.
For an example, I undertook a journey from Northampton to Southampton yesterday - what were the frustrations? In no particular order
- a jerk in a BMW (it's always a BMW) who chose to cut in at the last minute on a junction
- lorries running side by side at 50 and 52 mph respectively for miles on end along the A34
- a few idiots who were going so slowly in cars on the inside lane of the A34 that HGVs were having to pull out to overtake them.
- another jerk in a BMW showing a complete lack of consideration for other road users.
The problem is if that journey were exceptional, you'd just put it down to a bad day, but the reality is all of those are typical experiences if you make a longish journey in the UK nowadays.