A reader sent me a link to this article in Autoblog.
…first time passers that are the lucky recipients of the title of ‘safest drivers in the world ever’, but this report seems to have official government backing.
A study by TRL, formerly the Transport Research Laboratory, claims that drivers that passed first time were “15 percent less likely to be involved in a collision”.
Autoblog appears to be sceptical of this research (it points out that it was commissioned by the Department for Transport). The story continues:
“First time passers were on average more confident about their driving abilities,” the research noted.
“They also reported making fewer inexperience errors, but more violations and more aggressive violations when driving.”A separate report by TRL revealed learner drivers who had had lots of practice driving in town centres and in the rain had more chance of avoiding an accident in the six months after passing their test.
Whenever anything like this appears it always seems to start up some sort of war. If it isn’t the people who commissioned the report it’s one of the researchers, or some equally silly quarrel. Everyone else always seems to know best.
My opinion is that it is just proving the obvious. I mean, it must be pretty clear that people who can confidently go to test and pass it are, by definition and on average, more confident drivers with a better understanding of how to apply their skills. Better, for example, than the white knuckle drivers who eventually scraped through their tests after cracking under the pressure on the first few, and who hate driving and always will.
I suppose it is also obvious that some people who pass first time are likely to be proud of that fact and – again, on average – see themselves as superior. It is understandable that they tend to drive accordingly.
It is also blindingly obvious that experience in some topic lends skills that those who haven’t had the experience will lack. Notably, driving in bad weather and in towns.
The overwhelming problem with the survey (or is it the reporting of the survey? I don’t know for sure) is that it is a gross oversimplification of the real situation. Driving skills and attitude may well mix to form a lethal cocktail, but they are completely separate entities. You need to be an arrogant little sod in the first place to drive arrogantly once you pass your test, and passing your test doesn’t specifically make you any more or less arrogant.
It just gives you another way with which to express your arrogance.
And one more thing: the research isn’t suggesting that those who don’t pass first time shouldn’t be on the roads. OK, some shouldn’t – but some first-time passers shouldn’t be, either. It is simply pointing out how innate ability as a driver is reflected generally in test success data.