Monday, August 15, 2011
Dad’s taxi, 80 years of service and counting
We’re all living longer. If your parents were born in the 1950s, chances are that they will now reach, or get very close to reaching their 80s and many may even reach their 90s – a far cry from life expectancy in the early part of last century, where reaching a half-century was considered for some a sign of venerable old-age.
Yet here we are in 2011. How things have changed, for example a baby girl born this year has a one-in-three chance of living to 100. In fact, according to the Office of National Statistics by 2066 there will be more than half a million people in the UK over the age of 100.
But how many of them will be drivers?
Recent figures show that there has been a 19% drop in 17 to 22-year-olds taking their driving test since 2005. The figure looks even more startling when you realise that is a drop of 200,000 drivers.And the chief reason for this fall?
Well, sadly its not improved public transport services but increases in the costs of motoring, particularly the price of young driver car insurance.
And this may not be a good thing for the drivers of the future. Not only is it harder to teach a new dog old tricks, but it’s also true that there is no substitute for experience. Simon Douglas, from the AA comments, "It doesn't matter what age you learn to drive, the longer you spend behind the wheel the better you'll be as a driver."
So perhaps we better hope that our parents live much longer than predicted, and for completely unsentimental reasons: without them we’ll be entirely reliant on the bus to get home, even when we’re using our OAP Freedom Pass.
Let’s keep our parents alive, we need the lift.
Photo © moonlightbulb via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: driving test, life expectancy, young driver car insurance
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posted by Fuse @ 8:39 AM 
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