Madness II

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.

We must be all well and truly mad for allowing Nanny into our homes, into our lives and into our minds.

It seems that Nanny wishes to extend her "mind control" techniques (I raised this issue earlier, in my article about children being given psychological assessments at the tender age of 4) to drivers.

Nanny's chum Robert Gifford, executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), has called for psychological assessments to be made part of the UK driving test.

Seemingly these tests could help identify people with the "wrong attitude" to the road.

Quite what the "wrong attitude" is, seems to be a matter of debate.

Gifford is of the belief that the current driving test is inadequate, because it does not look for risk takers.

He believes that psychometric assessment would help identify such "faults", and instructors and examiners would then be able to modify the person's behaviour.

The key phrase that Gifford uses is "modify the person's behaviour". Nanny has no right to "modify" behaviour, if that behaviour is not illegal.

I realise that, at the moment, Nanny is merely "entertaining" this idea in respect of driving. However, fast forward a few years; she will undoubtedly then use her "risk modification" techniques (tested on driver) to modify all of our behaviour, in her never ceasing and impossible quest to eliminate risk.

Since when is risk taking a fault?

Many successful businesses, and indeed empires, have been built by risk takers. Were Nanny to succeed in eliminating risk takers from society, she would in effect destroy our future prosperity and future prospect.

Can you imagine a society populated entirely by "local council/health and safety" types?

PASS THE SICK BAG!!!

Gifford said recently:

"What one would want to do is

- in addition to the multiple choice questions

that there are in the theory test at the moment -

we would give people a series of value judgements.

These could include,

'At what speed would you anticipate driving down this road?'

or

'Have you ever left the traffic lights

while they have been on red?'.

We would ask people the extent to which they

agree or disagree with these statements.

It would be a way of picking up their underlying values

rather than just the facts that they have at their disposal,

which are a series of multiple choice questions."

Errmmmmm...call me stupid...but wouldn't even the dimmest of candidates simply answer "I have never left the traffic lights when they are red"?

Edmund King, the RAC Foundation's executive director, thinks that the idea is a load of bollocks:

"We accept we have to do more about young drivers

who are most at risk on the roads.

We are not opposed to new ideas but the concept of

psychometric testing is not the solution

and a bit of a gimmick, we would like to see

prior training in education."

Aggression and risk taking have driven the human race forward from the caves which they originally inhabited, to try to "modify" these valuable traits will destroy our future.