Pulaski

Some things are fairly predictable. The teenage grandson of a local business man I know was bought a BMW by his parents. Not long after, doing about 70mph on a sweeping curve with a 45mph limit, he drifted across the centre line and ploughed into a car coming the other way with a middle aged couple in it. The result was three fatalities.

Bob

Just curious, how much are driving lessons out everyone's way?

They're around $60-100 a lesson down my way, but I'm not sure if that's because some are one hour and some are two hours and split with two students in the car.

old.sparkles

$60 plus bottle of wine (or $70 without the wine) for 1 hour lesson here. (I did a deal as the wine is free from work and I don't drink it )

Gozit

Approx. C$600 got me 4 x 8 hours in class (two weekends in a row sat+sun), plus 10 hours in car lessons solo without any other kids in the car. This is the Ministry of Transportation requirement for getting the insurance discounts and becoming eligible to take your intermediate (G2) license 4mos early.

The license fee for my G1 (learners) and G2 (intermediate) was C$150 together for the 2. In September it will be about $80 for me to go for the road test and get my full license.

In ON how it works is age 16 - learners permit, then you do your drivers ed, and after 8 months you go for your intermediate (if you don't do driver's ed this period is 1 year), then 1 year from your intermediate you can test for your full license, though you have 5 years you can be on your intermediate, and at the end of the 5 years if you haven't gotten your full license then you forfeit your intermediate and have to start over on your learners.

I personally opted to do the in-class drivers ed portion 2 months before I turned 16 so when I got my learners I could just start with the in car lessons.

petitefrancaise

Wow! A BE poster who apologises when he gets it wrong... well done and a few other posters could do with learning from you.

Now that I am off my particular high horse I think we are in agreement about when to learn to drive. I think learning to drive a car is a life skill that has to be learned and my aim was to make sure my kids had passed their driving test before they left home. If I could have started the process earlier, I would have done so because the more driving experience they get the better drivers they will be - more miles behind the wheel. As for maturity, when kids leave home to go to college or whatever, they have to become more mature and responsible, I don't think it's an age thing, I think it's a life experience thing.

I seem to remember reading that the largest group of drink-drivers was men in their 50s. but that may well have been in the UK and probably true for France too. Not the teens. The OP may have excuses but this thread started because of a DUI and he doesn't sound like he's a teenager.

petitefrancaise

I know, we all have horror stories about teens. My new neighbour's son was doing 70mph in the rain up one of those horrible concrete curving bobsleigh runs they call ramps.... he also had the cruise control on (in the rain!!). He aquaplaned, car in cruise control and the car goes up the side of the ramp, flips a couple of times. He was lucky as now after 6 months he is no longer completely paralysed .

Pulaski

Cruise control on a ramp?

I assume he wasn't wearing a seatbelt either.

petitefrancaise

he was. That's why he's still alive. He was also sober. Luckily he didn't hurt anyone else.
cruise control in the rain on a ramp, going way too fast.

Gozit

Fully agreed

As for the DUI, in my experience yeah its people who grew up in the era where the cop would just drive you home instead of giving you a ticket/the harsh penalties of today on DUI. For lack of a better explanation us teens are scared shitless and know with even a drop of alcohol in our system we could lose our license, so we don't risk it. I would never drive with even 1 beer in my system. I'm not a partier, but the kids I know who do are all very good at getting a DD, and the ones who do bring their cars usually end up tossing the keys to someone else and sleeping in their car till morning when they can drive safely home. Here in ON blood alcohol content must be at zero until age 21. I think it should be zero for everyone. That would make it quite simple, you drink, you don't drive.

Gozit

Yep... Just idiocy and lack of proper education. I don't even use cruise on the motorways here, and as a result i've become good at maintaining my speed manually, and its easier to gauge the rest of traffic and easily be able to change lanes to overtake or get ready for an off-ramp.

My horror story is from a girl I know who had her own car, was driving 80km/h on a gravel road, took a turn too fast and went right into the ditch, car totaled and she has a concussion now. This was very recently, she was on her way to work (lives in the boonies) and was taking a shortcut. Its stupidity.

Pulaski

The problem with a true "zero tolerance" for blood alcohol is that there can be traces of alcohol in your blood from other sources, such as mouthwash, vinegar/pickles, other preserved foods, cooking sauces, and I hear even eating bread can sometimes cause measurable blood alcohol.

Bahtatboy

Especially if there's a decent chunk of Cheddar and a nice Barolo to go with it.

Gozit

Yeah, you'd probably have to have some sort of tolerance or officer discretion, say under 0.03BAC and the officer believes you to be of sound mind and not under the influence. Also have to worry about residual from the day before alcohol, people have to get up and go to work and go about their business the next day providing they aren't still drunk.

Pulaski

Which is where the .08 came from. While many countries have now reduced the limit below that, I doubt it is universally observed. IMO the primary result of dropping the limit below .08 is to make a driver who was plastered anyway, e.g..12, two or three times over the limit instead of just .04 over. It makes the headline more shocking!

In short, a very low limit might make naive non-drinkers feel
safer, but I doubt it makes a scrap of difference to real-world safety.

LondonSquirrel

I agree with a low limit for drinking and driving but agree with Pulaski that zero is just too problematic. A lot of cough medicine has alcohol in it, maybe the body would even absorb alcohol hand wash, no idea, but if you were a medical professional, you might be using that many times a day.

I support the law as it is in the UK but stringently enforced. Nobody should lose their licence for half a shandy. It's true that even a little alcohol can affect your concentration, but so can loads of things, like talking to the passengers. Using a mobile seems more dangerous to me than one small drink, and you see people doing that and getting away with it all the time here!