FORMER minister Neil Hamilton has said the new rules on older drivers are disproportionate and the country is becoming too risk averse.
Speaking on GB News he said: “It’s absolutely appalling, talk about Big Brother and the nanny state. It’s the Labour government in overdrive, distracting us from all the other catastrophes that they’re responsible for.
“Fewer than 1% of accidents, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, were due to poor eyesight – that’s regardless of the age of the driver. And in 2022 the figures that I’ve seen were 176 collisions, which were due to poor eyesight, and six deaths.
“When you think of all the tens of millions of drivers that we got in this country and the billions of miles that they drive, these figures are absolutely minuscule. So we’re talking about imposing huge costs and inconvenience on millions of people who are not responsible for many accidents.
“Older people, by and large, are much more careful drivers. They drive fewer miles anyway, and because they have the maturity which comes from decades of driving, they’re much more careful on average.
“Who’s going to pay for this to start with? I do actually go for eye tests anyway. I’m wearing glasses now, but I only need them for reading. I don’t need them for driving. If I wore glasses when I was driving, in fact, my eyesight would be worse. So this is really nonsensical.
“Most road accidents are caused by people aged 17 to 25. Should we raise the age at which you can get a driving license for 25 for example, because they’re responsible for such a high proportion of accidents?
“In 2022 also, 2400 casualties were due to dazzling sun. Do we stop people driving on sunny days? These are the issues which really need to be argued over.
“We’ve become such a risk averse society, we’ll stop people doing everything because something harmful could result from it. When motorcars first appeared in the 1890s you had to have a man walking in front of them with a red flag, so no car could go about four miles an hour.
“Well, if we reintroduce that, obviously we cut the number of road accidents very considerably but the cost to society in a more general way would be vastly disproportionate to the cost to individuals in the way they run their lives and indeed to the economy.
“So what we need to have is a sense of proportion here in regulation. We have, over the years, become overburdened with regulation to such an extraordinary degree, it is now costing us tens or maybe hundreds of billions a year, and that’s impoverishing the country, as well as reducing the quality of life.”
