Selfishness or incompetence?

Just read an article on the BBC News website about how hit and run "accidents" are on the increase. If you hit, it might well be an accident, if you scarper afterwards, it strikes me as being wounding with intent or even murder - definitely not an accident anymore.

The important part of this article, for me, is highlighting the number of drivers who break the law by not having tax and (vitally) insurance. Why would they stop? Although I am not against speed cameras (indeed I am in favour of them in the right place, especially the ones which clock average speed, rather then the ones where everyone stamps on their brakes and then speeds up), this issue highlights the need for more actual police to be around. I suppose that is something to be debated elsewhere, but whether Labour or the Tories win the next election, it is not something I can see changing.

The other issue is one that I was going to write about anyway - the number of sheer incompetents on the road. Now that it is cold, I am seeing people trying to drive off without defogging their windows first, people who still think it is OK to drive with a cigarette in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, people who think that indicating is optional etc. I have heard two interesting third party stories (I have deliberately made them gender-neutral, as it is not relevant to these stories):

1. Someone who said that they knew that their headlights (and not just the sidelights) were on because the blue light came on the dashboard. When it was pointed out that it meant they had full beam on, they said that they had always thought that it was just the headlights and therefore must have been driving with full beam on for months.

2. Someone who had bought a new car and was driving on a rainy night. They were driving very slowly, because the windows had misted up and they didn't know how to use the ventilations system to demist.

If you don't know how to get everything in the car to work, maybe you shouldn't be driving it. Am I the only one who, getting into a different car, will take a few seconds to find out where all the vital controls are?

Another problem is that the driving test is so far removed from most people's reality of everyday driving. I personally think that people should be retested every five years, although the trouble is that the DVLA may have trouble keeping up with demand, plus it would undoubtedly end up simply being a £-spinner. I don't particularly want a paternalistic state, but in this day and age, people are happy to take the benefits without the responsibilities to themselves and others. Consequences, what consequences?