This news story on the BBC reports that insurers are calling for an overhaul of the learner system. The changes they suggest include:
- learning to drive to take at least 1 year
- provisional licence available from 16½ years old
- no intensive courses allowed
- introduction of graduated licence
- restrictions on carrying passengers
- restrictions on driving after 11pm and before 4am
- No blood alcohol allowed at all
I agree with all of these except the one about reducing the age limit. Drivers are already often too immature to handle a car properly and allowing them to get in one 6 months earlier is just stupid. It would put us on a par with certain American states, where you can drive from the moment you’re born, and where you’re also usually allowed to marry farm animals. All you have to do is trawl through the news stories from those backwoods places to see what the effect of allowing children to drive is on accident figures.
The insurers only want a lower age because it would make them more money. There’s no sense in the idea in terms of statistics, yet it would unquestionably increase the number of people requiring insurance.
If anything, the minimum driving age should be increased – certainly for males.
There’s no escaping the actual statistics, though. Young drivers DO have a disproportionately large number of fatal accidents, and a large number of those fall into the “more-than-one-occupant-late-night-rural-road-on-a-bend-no-other-car-involved” category. It’s fairly obvious that immaturity and attitude have to play a significant part in this – I wish someone would produce the statistics that compare young/new with older/new drivers (not all learners are still in nappies).
Note: Even if this were approved today, it wouldn’t become law for several years – and it would probably be defeated before it became law because British politicians after votes are lower down the evolutionary ladder than those animals you’re allowed to marry in some American states I mentioned above!