I beg to differ... if a person has an interest in driving, and concentrates on developing his driving skills, I believe one can become adept in normal driving within one year. Contradictorily if a person drives in a laidback attitude for 20 years without paying attention to his driving at all, he might not even achieve the skills necessary to drive at higher speeds.
Accident is a different thing altogether. It really depends on the individual's ability to keep calm and think logically in an emergency, a 35 year old might panic and crash his car just like an 18 year old driver in emergencies.
Keep in mind that its *normal driving* in a more powerful car that Im talking about, not taking corners using perfect racing lines like race drivers. Those no doubt come with experience la. For normal driving one year is plenty of time IMO.
Of course chances of P drivers having less skills are MUCH higher, but Im basically saying that (in my defense also, Im still a P mah) P drivers do not necessary have poorer skills than full-fledged drivers... if you give a 10 year experience driver a high powered car, it doesnt mean that he'll have the skills to handle the car right?
So to say " want a 1.8? complete your P first " is pretty unfair in my opinion. My biased opinion only la, I may be wrong. :)
BTW: NFSU is CRAP. Even GT4 is only half-realistic, one of the more realistic games would be F355 challenge with all the assists off.
Edit: Oh by the way. with so much information on driving techniques and etc on the internet now, its not really learning by yourself anymore. Learning with all the information in the world and by yourself is completely different.