Stricter laws needed for young drivers says AA

Drivers under the age of 21 should not be transporting passengers of a similar age during the first six months of their licence, the AA has said.

The insurance company has claimed that “tougher” rules are needed on British roads to protect young people, with the AA’s president, Edmund King, telling Winol that the law needs to be “stricter”.

“We believe, that, for the first six months after passing your test, you should be limited and not allowed to take passengers of a similar age,” he said.

“The reason for this is that all the evidence shows that with passengers in the car, you’re four times more likely to crash.

“When looking at other countries, we have found they have similar schemes, and it has reduced deaths and injuries from between 20 and 40%.”

In Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden and some states of the US, a “graduation licence” is in place, with Northern Ireland also recently trialling the restrictions.

Dr Sarah Jones, co-director of the government’s ‘THINK!’ campaign, described this form of licence as “[allowing] new drivers to gain valuable driving experience under low risk conditions”.

The Department of Transport 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.”

‘Action needed’

But Mr King believes that change needs to happen now more than ever.

“For some time at the AA, we’ve been looking at the figures for young drivers deaths, and it seemed almost that every other weekend there would be a case of four teenagers in a car – three teenagers in a car would die.

“And when we started looking at the figures, we actually found that each year, something like 1,500 young drivers were killed or seriously injured in crashes. […] There was a bit of a trend.

“It would be late on a Saturday night, it tended to be same age passengers in the car, and more often than not, the crash took place on a rural road.

“It is sad to say, but these deaths are treated like a ‘drip drip’, one a week, two a week, three a week, four a week type thing.

“Whereas, if you have a crash on the railways – if you have an airline going down – there is an absolute outcry.

“There is a public requirement and action is taken. I think it is sad that we almost accept the death of people on the roads, and in particular, young people.

“When we look at causes of death in young people, dying on roads is so much higher than knife crime, drink or drugs. The only thing which comes close is, sadly, suicide,” said Mr King.