Newly qualified young drivers are disproportionately likely to be involved in road crashes where someone is hurt.
It is a well-known and long-standing problem, and like many others the RAC Foundation has argued the case for the introduction of Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) which would allow those newly independent on the road to become safer, more confident drivers in those critical early months through the use of some temporary licensing guidelines and safeguards that help new drivers gain experience while reducing risks.
GDL is commonplace across the world and comes in different forms. The Foundation has previously set out its own proposals for what a GDL system might look like. It would apply to seventeen-to-nineteen-year-olds and comprise: a six-month minimum learning period before a practical test is taken and restrictions on the carrying of passengers aged 25 or under (unless accompanied by an older adult) for six months after passing the practical test, with the penalty for doing so being six points on the driver’s licence.
To ensure the scheme remained practical there would be exemptions for a young parent carrying their own children, for people qualifying for the enhanced rate of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), for members of the armed forces and those driving as part of their in-work duties.
However, even though GDL has been proven to save lives, there remains the issue of public acceptance of such a scheme not least amongst those drivers likely to be impacted by it.
This deliberative research by Ipsos, commissioned by the RAC Foundation, explores the attitudes towards GDL of sixty-six seventeen-to-nineteen-year-olds. The interviewees comprised a mixture of learners, fully-licensed drivers and non-drivers. Their reactions, even after the risks newly-qualified young drivers face were discussed, were at best muted.
Whilst those involved in the research typically accepted that young drivers were at greater risk, they did not readily view this as a product of age and inexperience. Instead, risky or reckless driving behaviours were more often cited as the cause, making it harder for participants to support a scheme that they felt would unfairly affect themselves and their friends, who they did not consider to be “the problem.”
There was some softening in attitudes to GDL as discussions progressed, particularly when international experience was reviewed. Participants were also more open to changes in the learning-to-drive period (for example, the introduction of a minimum learning period) than to measures applied post-test, such as restrictions on carrying passengers.
Elsewhere the RAC Foundation has published another report showing that parental influence can have a positive effect on keeping young drivers safe deep into the first years of independent driving, though that involvement, and the benefits it brings, would sit best alongside a system of GDL rather than being a substitute for it.
