New Young Drivers Should Be Banned From Giving Their Friends Lifts, Says AA

New drivers under 21 in the UK should be banned from carrying passengers of a similar age for the first six months after passing their test, the AA has said.

Despite young drivers making up just six percent of all licence holders in the UK, the demographic accounts for one of every five serious or fatal crashes on UK roads, with Department for Transport (DfT) figures showing that 290 people were killed and 4,669 seriously injured in crashes on Britain’s roads last year in incidents involving at least one driver between 17 and 24 years old.

Already used in several countries, including the US, Canada, Australia and Sweden, graduated driving licences (GDL) see certain regulations imposed on young drivers who have just passed their test such as being accompanied by someone with more experience at night and obeying passenger number restrictions.

Under current UK law drivers have to pass a probationary period of two years where they are only allowed six points on their licence before having it revoked, however the AA has suggested that the introduction of a GDL would save at least 58 lives and prevent 934 people being seriously injured in road crashes each year.

The AA’s chief executive, Jakob Pfaudler, said: “Not only is this a tragic waste of life, but it contributes to the burden of high insurance premiums for young drivers. These premiums should fall when there is evidence of a reduction of young drivers and passengers killed and seriously injured.

“Graduated driver licensing has been proven in other countries to significantly reduce road deaths and serious injuries. We are calling on the transport secretary to make simple, pragmatic changes to the licensing process so young people are better protected in their first few months of independent driving.”

The DfT announced in July 2019 that it was considering introducing GDL in England, but the assessment was halted in autumn 2020, partly because of the potential impact on young people’s employment.

The most popular element of the AA’s proposal, according to an online survey of 10,566 of its members, was passenger restrictions, with 33% of respondents saying they would support them.

Last week, the senior coroner for north-west Wales, Kate Robertson, raised concerns about young, newly qualified drivers carrying passengers after an inquest into the deaths of four teenagers who drowned when their car rolled into a ditch on a trip to Snowdonia in November last year.

Speaking to the the Sunday Times, Crystal Owen, whose son Harvey was one of those killed in the accident said she believed that a ban could have saved their lives.

She said she had subsequently learned that graduated licences existed in other countries. “I thought: ‘What the hell is going on? Why is this or some version of it not law?

“Their brains are not fully formed, which is why we have other restrictions on things like buying cigarettes.”

Owen has co-founded a campaign group, Forget-me-not Families Uniting, calling for the introduction of a GDL, and has launched a petition on Change.org, which says: “With one in every five newly qualified drivers crashing within their first year and young drivers being at higher risk of being involved in a fatal crash when carrying peer age passengers, there is an urgent need to act now to save lives.”

A DfT spokesperson said: “Whilst we are not considering graduated driving licences, we absolutely recognise that young people are disproportionately victims of tragic incidents on our roads, and we are considering other measures to tackle this problem and protect young drivers. That’s why we are committed to delivering a new road safety strategy – the first in over a decade – and will set out next steps on this in due course.”

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