New approach to Britain’s young drivers welcomed

The RAC supports the Association of British Insurers’ call for a radical overhaul of how young people learn to drive made in its ‘Improving the Safety of Young Drivers’ report published in October 2012.

Mark Godfrey, head of RAC Insurance, says: “Reducing accidents, deaths and injuries among young drivers is a priority for Britain as a nation. Far too many lives, both young and older, are lost or wrecked every year due to road accidents involving young drivers.

“Changing the way young people learn to drive and what they are allowed to do once they pass their tests has to be a positive move for everyone who drives. There are, however, many questions about how this would be implemented that need to be addressed carefully to ensure we don’t make the hassle and the expense of learning to drive prohibitive.

“If these proposals can be introduced easily and practically we will inevitably see a drop in the number of accidents involving young people under the age of 25. They will also have a positive effect on the cost of insurance for older drivers which is currently heavily influenced by young drivers.”

The ABI is calling for the following measures to improve the safety of young drivers:

• A minimum 12-month learning period before taking the driving test to enable young learner drivers to gain more supervised practice
• A ban on taking an intensive driving course as the sole means of learning to drive
• The lowering of the age at which young people can start learning to drive to age 16 and a half
• Graduated driver licensing. This would include restrictions on the number of young drivers that can be carried by a young driver in the first six months after passing their driving test, reflecting the fact that the crash risk increases significantly with young passengers in the car

The ‘Improving the Safety of Young Drivers’ report states:

• Only one in eight driver licence holders in the UK are aged 25 or under, yet one in three who die on our roads is aged under 25.
• An 18 year-old driver is more than three times as likely to be involved in a crash than a 48 year-old driver.