Can changes to how we learn to drive make our roads safer?
Driving is one of the riskiest things we do – especially if you’re a new driver. According to parliament’s transport select committee, over 38,000 people are killed or injured each year in collisions involving at least one driver with less than two-years experience on the roads.
One of the issues this committee recently looked at was how people learn to drive and whether this could be changed to help reduce road accidents. The committee suggested introducing a minimum learning period, which would mean taking at least 12 months to learn to drive. This sounds like a good idea as it means learner drivers get more experience on the roads before getting their full licence and they would have practised driving in more varied conditions, like icy weather or in the dark.
However, one of the impacts of this minimum learning period would be to effectively raise the age people are allowed to drive unaccompanied from 17 to 18. What would this mean for young people who rely on driving for getting to work or college? In Sweden, when the period of driving training was increased they also lowered the age at which you could get a provisional licence. This may be a way of introducing this change without disadvantaging 17 year olds.
The transport select committee also said they think the whole process of driver training needs to be seriously improved. In addition to the minimum learning period, they want the Department for Transport to look at how to make testing more effective and maybe introducing ongoing driver assessment. The debate on how we learn to drive is going to go on for some time and it’ll be interesting to see what the government actually decides to do and how this affects both learner and qualified drivers.