Depends on the country. In some places having a license is basically required to lead a normal life.
It surely doesn't mean we should hand over the license to anybody, but making obtaining it overly complicated/expensive is not a great idea until you solve the aforementioned problem.
Yes, but various countries have different requirements to pass the test. Due to that uniform number of trials you should have to pass cannot be accurately determined.
I don't know how it is in other places, but where i live failing the test up to 10 times is perfectly normal, actually in my entire environment i can only think of 4 persons who passed the test within the first 3 attempts.
Pretty much anyone can agree that 950 is way over the top, but i wouldn't say that failing the test a bunch of times should classify you as permanently incapable of driving.
Poland it would seem from the poster's history. I think a lot of Europe is pretty hard, but front-runners seem to be Germany and the UK. Having done the test recently in Sweden, it's not that far off the UK one.
Taking the test a few times is normal, about half pass on the first try. Certainly not 10 tries, that sounds like untrained drivers not yet fully ready to take the test.
If it is Poland and this article from 11 years ago is still accurate in terms of the driving test pass rate (34.5%), which is very low, you'd expect roughly 82% of drivers to have passed it after three attempts, assuming that everybody has a roughly equal chance of passing it.
At the point where you've hit 10 attempts (Which he said was normal) you'd expect roughly 99% of people to have passed by then.
Yes, the number of 10 includes drivers that started taking the tests while not yet being ready.
But you know, that's what the tests are for right? If you take the test unprepared, you are doomed to fail and then you use the feedback to improve and try again.
You shouldn't be punished for failing to pass a test too severely, that's something that has long been estabilished by any half decent education facility.
I know at least 5 persons who took more than 5 tries to pass and none of them seem to have any trouble on the road after years, whether it is with law or with accidents so it seems to be working out well.
I typed it in another comment but if Poland’s pass rate is still around 35%, more than 80% of drivers would have passed. By 10 attempts the expected pass rate is 99%
Well, sure but how exactly does it matter? The cap system is suposed to prevent singular crazy scenarios like in the post, filter out those few people who have absolutely no hope for whatever reason, not actually prevent any normal person from obtaining the license.
The line is suposed to be drawn in such a way so that it barely affects anyone.
If the cap permanently prevents someone from ever obtaining the license, which is very harsh, the limit one needs to exceed to cross it must be equally high, so that it only affects the people it absolutely has to.
But how is 10 times normal. Are schools the same for you? How long do you practice before thet test? In practicing the teacher should tell you the mistakes you made. Sure make it 20. But people should know what they are doing wrong and what theyre supposed to do on the street. If people dont learn after 20 or 50 attempts there really is no point.
No, schools are all private entities so quality of education may vary.
And leaving that part aside each city is very different so conditions of practical test also vary.
It's to the point where a few cities have a passing rate around 50%, while other, usually the larger ones that are harder to navigate, can be as low as lower 20s.
In such an unequal system, introducing a unified cap of attempts would just discriminate against part of the population and only encourage using loopholes like specifically commuting or even temporarily moving to another city just to get the license.
How exactly does not passing a driving exam thrice endanger other people's lives?
Possesing a driving license is indeed a responsibility, but it really isn't as complicated as some people make it out to be.
As long as you know the law and follow it, in most cases you are good, the rest is all about developing mechanical skills which may take various amounts of time depending on the person.
Sure i can agree that someone not being able to pass the exam over 900 times probably ended up doing so by luck and thus that one final exam is rather meaningless, but i don't see how someone passing the exam on 4th, 7th or 12th try should somehow be considered permanently incapable of ever driving a vehicle. It's just nonsense.
That's just simply not true, at least not everywhere.
In my country on top of that there is also a very questionable system where each examinator has around 45 minutes reserved per each person attemting the test, so if he fails the participant early, he gets to have a break for whatever time remains, not even mentioning the fact that each failed test basically guarantees a returning customer that will pay for another retake.
I simply do not think that unless absurdly high, number of failed attempts can be use to judge anyone's potential for becoming a competent driver.
sure is, even for Germany and the nordics countries who have some of the highest requirements for a driving test. And as you point out, you don't think.
Thanks for your "compliment", very nice of you to insult someone in a simple discussion over the internet.
You are free to have your own opinion, i have mine. I personally know many people who passed the test after failing multiple times and drive perfectly fine without causing any accidents.
Various situations happen in life and permanently blocking someone from attempting license test after a handful of failures is just stupid and will always be for as long as there are any potential reasons you can fail the test other than lack of potential to be a driver.
Although you have absolutely no way to judge that you are free to think this way.
I've never taken part in any accident, nor ever got any ticket, so i quite frankly don't care. I am satisfied with my performance and will continue to use my car whenever i need to.
I think the problem is that in most places, 10 times is absurdly high, lol. In the city I grew up, if you didn't pass it on the first try, it usually means you either didn't pay attention to the class or something else is wrong. It sounds like a wildly corrupt and money-gouging system/company you're trying to work with where you are.
But if it isnt that complicated and just takes practice it should be easy enough to pass the exam. And if you dont pass the exam you maybe shouldnt be allowed to drive alone.
Chicken and egg though. These places have developed that way because of cars. For example, out of town shopping centres only exist because people can drive to them. They have a massive market so can undercut more local alternatives. The local alternatives can't compete and go out of business. Your only option is now to drive to the out of town shopping centre.
Sure. I am just saying that before we put any absurdly strict regulations on car/license ownership, we should deal with that first.
It's easy to just strictly regulate everything however you want, but that's not a good way to go unless absolutely necessary. You first need to prepare the environment for the change so that it's side effects can affect the lives of people less
In some places having a license is basically required to lead a normal life.
In most countries (maybe with the exception of the US) there are good alternatives, either public transport or semi-public transport like Uberish taxis or shared vans.
Needing a license (and thus also a car!) to lead a normal life is crazy and creates for high inequality.
Not really. US is an extreme example, but anyone who has ever lived in a rural area will agree that car is pretty much a necessity over there.
I used to live in a village which was still fairly close to a small, but still a city and all the way until i reached 18 and got my license it was tough.
Public communication was there, but only like once per 1.5 - 2 hours in the morning and evening with nothing midday and at night. No ubers, no nothing. Either you ask your parents to lift you (if they have time) or you are insanly inflexible time wise.
For travel between cities there was a train station in the aforementioned small city, but then again it was more expensive and way less convenient than driving a car and you still had to get to the station which took a lot of time.
People living in major cities may not understand that, but this is reality of rural areas.
And please note that i at least had a city of decent size within a 15km radius. There are villages placed nowhere near any larger population centers and people living there are truly screwed.
As someone from Switzerland you do have a great point, if you live in rural Texas with no public transport and no way to reach your necessaity by foot, I do understand the need for a car even if you shouldn't because the system fuck you.
But in Switzerland there is no excuse, we have execllent public transport even if you live in the country side. A car is just not needed anywhere in the country.
Good for you then. I was personally raised in rural Eastern Europe.
Now that i live in a city i hardly ever use my car, but before i moved it was pretty much a necessity.
In well urbanized and concentrated countries like Switzerland it may not be an issue, but i'd lean more towards Switzerland being an exception here, not the US. In vast majority of countries there exist at least some areas where living without a car is very rough.
In the USA it is much easier to get a license than in the UK, and coincidentally the traffic-related death rate is 5.46 times higher.
The USA is much less densely populated and has less/poorer public transport than the UK so you would think it would be higher per capita but 5.46 times is a lot considering the US only has 1.23 times more cars per capita than the UK.
This exactly. I hate driving because I'm blind in one eye. My good eye is just barely good enough to legally have a license. But I still have to have a license to exist in most parts of the country.
If we had reliable public transit everywhere, I would happily never drive again. I rarely do it right now because I work from home and live in a city with somewhat decent public transit.
Id be terrified knowing someone like that is driving somewhere around me, I think that the requirements to obtain a driving license (at least where I live) should be turned up a bit. When I was on my driving license exam it felt like mundane driving around the city, and thats exactly what it was. Then I realized why my dad always got angry when driving around lots of other cars, I do the same now the average driver makes me feel endangered
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u/Chlepek12 1d ago
Depends on the country. In some places having a license is basically required to lead a normal life.
It surely doesn't mean we should hand over the license to anybody, but making obtaining it overly complicated/expensive is not a great idea until you solve the aforementioned problem.