Safe Speed Forums

Changing Gears

More restrictions are needed on young male drivers


It is a sobering statistic early in a new year, but, on recent form, more than a thousand young drivers will be killed or seriously injured in the course of 2007. The accident rate for young drivers, especially young male drivers, is wildly disproportionate when compared with older motorists, and still striking when contrasted with women of the same age. Furthermore, the greater the number of young people travelling together as driver and passengers, the more likely is the chance of an accident when compared with an older group of people. Speed is often the cause of tragedy, but it is sometimes just a matter of inexperience. New drivers are often unfamiliar with the road at night and have no notion of operating on a motorway until first setting out on their own.

This is not acceptable. Stephen Ladyman, the Road Safety Minister, is right to contend, as he does in his interview with The Times today, that more rules need to be imposed. In Britain new motorists “first pass the test, then learn to drive”. The current driving test rewards young men for being technically competent enough to manage the requirements asked, but ignores that their attitudes might be quite inappropriate for the road. Overseas experience suggests that it is possible to cut the number of deaths and accidents substantially if a fresh approach is taken. Ministers appear to be open-minded on what strategy is best. The Department for Transport is, nevertheless, interested in a “deal” under which young people start learning to drive at an earlier age — perhaps 16 — but must record many more hours behind the wheel (100 or more) before being permitted to take their test. Sweden has adopted this formula and has far lower fatalities and injuries as a result. There are, nevertheless, some difficulties with this. At present rates, anyone learning to drive with a professional instructor will pay far more to acquire his or her licence if the 100-hour norm is accepted. That prospect might lead teenagers to look to friends and relatives to teach them rather than to those better qualified. This might be averted if driving could be integrated into the school curriculum, but it is hard to imagine how this might be done at the moment, given the many demands on the crowded timetable. There is also the real risk that driving records could be faked. Other options should be considered. There are a number of possibilities. These include making the present test much harder, so that failure at the first attempt is the acknowledged norm. In Germany, young people can hold a licence at 17 but cannot drive alone until 18. Other countries impose night-time curfews on young drivers or limit the number of passengers they can carry. All of these schemes deserve serious investigation. Pilot projects should be contemplated. Britain cannot continue with the status quo. After the age of 25, British drivers are as safe as those in other countries. Fatalities are concen-trated at the young end of the age spectrum. It should not be assumed that teenage males, in particular, have a “right to drive” when they are doing so much damage to themselves, their passengers and those who have the misfortune to share the road with them. The combination of more hours behind the wheel before being allowed to go solo, a more robust test and greater restrictions on young men might be sensible. Something must be done.

All that is going to happen is that the honest few will do the hours and the rest will drive illegally knowing full well the chance of being stopped is next to zero and if they are the punishment will be tiny compared to the cost of having 100 hours of driving experience. Illegal driving is at an all time high and this is largely down to making the driving test harder.

It also has the knock on effect of more young people being killed as they're travelling in 4 or 5 in a car rather than the 1 or 2 of before.

The driving test should be made easier and use the CBT style with restrictions until a full test is passed later after a minimum of 2 years holding the CBT style licence.

As a parent of teenage sons, the thing that worries me about small cars is the overwhelming evidence from the actuarial industry that if you DO have a smash you are far better off being in a bigger vehicle!

I will post this to the related thread as well.. but the Chief of Driving Instructors did say that there is a tendency to practise only on the test routes so that the student driver will drive according to the rubric of the test and then be "lost completely" on new and unfamiliar ground when left to own devices - making silly and even tragically lethal mistakes. In fact, he echoed something which I posted to vonhosen on the PH site on this same topic .. when I described that the reason why we did the block lessons with our kids and then had them out with different family members in very different areas and times of the day was giving our young a varied experience routine and then tightening up in the two days before the big test day itself on the test routes. Could be why Durham's trainer was so far from "base" as well The real test of "understanding" lies in the "unseen exam" where you apply what you have learned - and show and prove you have understood it.

The guy said exactly what has been said by most of us and certainly by Paul ....that drivers need experience and can only obtain this by driving on different roads and even the familiar roads in different road, time and weather conditions. Hence the call to allow the kids to practise earlier and for longer before being of age to take a driving test. It would help if after these lessons .. these children were taught to evaluate their drives and how they might improve and learn more in formal lesson time .