Big support for online petition for driving tests for people aged over 70

I got a government form the other week saying my driving licence was due to expire and, if I wanted to apply for renewal, I should complete the enclosed self-assessment application.

As an elderly man, I was mildly surprised that there was no requirement for a medical or a driving test, but I did the necessary and shortly afterwards a new licence came through the letter box, taking me up to 2020. Quick, simple, efficient!

But for some, too quick, simple and efficient. A man whose wife was killed by an elderly driver who mistook the accelerator for the brake, has started an online petition calling for people over 70 to be re-tested every three years.

Ben Brooks-Dutton was walking home with his wife, Desreen, when a car mounted the pavement and struck and killed Desreen.

The car was driven by Geoffrey Lederman, aged 85, who was sentenced to 12 months in jail.

SUPPORTING SIGNATURES

Brooks-Dutton’s petition gathered 140,000 supporting signatures in six days. One older driver wrote, “I’m on the verge of 70 and I have already decided to take myself off the road.” Another said, “I’m 61 and intend to give up driving when I’m 70.”

Not everyone agreed. One man said, “My father was still driving at 85 and had a clean licence when he passed on.”

The Department of Transport says there is no evidence that older drivers are more likely to cause accidents. Indeed, statistics show that drivers under 20 have more fatal accidents than those over 75.

Myself, I am well past the 70 mark, but I haven’t driven a car for years and I have no intention of doing so. The value of the licence to me is that, since we don’t have ID cards in this country, it is accepted automatically for identification.

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Getting contraband to a convict in prison used to consist of bribing a warder or throwing the stuff over the prison wall. Nowadays, criminals use drones.

The invention of easy-to-fly, remote-controlled aircraft has caused a huge security headache for prisons.

Drugs and mobile phones are the main items. They are carried by the drone to barred but unshuttered prison windows, unloaded swiftly from the hovering aircraft and hidden in the prison before officers can reach them.

PRISON SERVICE

Now the prison service and the police are to pool intelligence to stop the traffic. They will forensically examine captured drones to find out who was flying them.

In the past year, three men have been apprehended flying drones to prisons in various parts of the UK. They were sentenced to terms ranging from 14 months to four years and eight months.

Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah said, “We are absolutely determined to tackle the illegal flow of drugs and mobile phones into our prisons.”   

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Can there be anyone alive who has not been told that smoking can kill you? The answer must be yes, since a new study has shown that because of population growth, the number of smokers has increased worldwide.

The report, published in the medical journal The Lancet, stated, “Despite more than half a century of unequivocal evidence of the harmful effects of tobacco on health, today one in every four men (and one in 20 women) in the world is a daily smoker.”

Tobacco caused more than 6.4 million deaths in 2015, that is 4.7 per cent more than in 1990.

WIDE DISPARITY

World Health Organisation statistics show a wide disparity of cigarette consumption among nations, with Africa generally looking better than many.

The two biggest consumers are Russia, each of whose adult smokers gets through 2,690 cigarettes per year, and China, 2,249 cigarettes per year.

The United States comes in at 1,083, France at 1,022, Britain on 827 and India 510.

Africa would look better if South Africa was excluded (537 cigs p.a.) since consumption is generally low and Guinea has the lowest figure in the world, 14.

The figures for East Africa are: Kenya 256, Tanzania 101 and Uganda 41.

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Father Smith woke up one Sunday morning and, seeing that it was an exceptionally beautiful day, decided he just had to play golf. He called a priest friend, told him he was not feeling well and persuaded him to say Mass in his place.

As soon as the coast was clear, Fr Smith headed to a golf course 40 miles away where he knew he would see none of his parishioners.

It was a Sunday morning, after all, and everyone else would be in church.

On the green, Fr Smith hit his first ball. It shot straight towards the pin, dropped just short, then rolled up and into the hole.

It was a 220-yard hole in one, golf’s Holy Grail!
Up above, Saint Peter looked at the Lord and said, “You’re not letting him get away with that, are you?” The Lord smiled. “Who is he going to tell?”

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