Remember the good old days when Britain’s roads were the exclusive preserve of a handful of better-off types ready to splurge the price of a house on a thundering open-top motor chariot?
Remember the fun of watching the lower orders scatter in ill-disguised terror as one whizzed and zoomed around bustling towns and tranquil countryside? Well, fondly reminisce no more. Those days are coming back!
Young proles are being priced off Britain’s roads by a combination of sky high insurance premiums, rocketing tuition costs, and having no money.
Soon a young person driving a car of any kind will be a sure sign (as with top o’ the range Chelsea Tractors now) that they’re the pampered offspring of the moneyed elite or a criminal of some kind.
Some geezer trading under the too-much-protesting moniker Honest John says the number of 17 year olds taking the practical driving test each year has fallen by more than 100,000 since 2007, with the total of under-25s learning to drive down 20%.
In some parts of the country, young drivers are effectively an endangered species, with test-takers down more than 60% in East Sussex and 45% in the Environs of Bristol. In the former county, some youngsters are actually resorting to riding horses!
It’s a trend that can only gather speed, with car insurance premiums for young ‘uns rising rapidly (up 8% in Q1 2007), fuelled by hikes in Insidious Purloinment Tax (IPT) and the Ogden Flake.
And just as young motorists are being hit repeatedly in their pockets, the sense of fun and freedom that owning a car once brought is succumbing to the sustained onslaught of black boxes, surveillance cameras, traffic restrictions, and intrusively ‘smart’ cars that don’t trust you to drive them.
Now, if we can just ban all those acid-spraying scooterists, and put Amazon deliveries on drones, the road will be truly open once more.
Happy days, chaps!
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