Plans mooted to ban young drivers from carrying passengers

Date: 19/11/2012

Proposals have been put forward to ban young drivers from carrying passengers for the first nine months after they have passed their test.

Patrick McLoughlin, Transport Secretary, is considering looking at a number of possible plans to cut the accident rate in the young demographic, which have been put forward by the (ABI) Association of British Insurers.

He said: "They are not drivers with a huge amount of experience by the very fact of them being new drivers. I think we have got to look at that."

Peer pressure to drive quickly, coupled with less knowledge of the road, can mean younger drivers are more likely to be involved in crashes.

If the proposition is adopted then only members of the driver's family will be allowed to travel in the car with them during the course of the first nine months.

Figures from the ABI state that one in eight drivers on UK roads are under the age of 25, but accident rates show that a third of those who die in car accidents fit into this age range.

Mr McLoughlin said: "I read regular reports where three or four young people have been killed in a car and it’s a new driver and you wonder what happened."

Calculations have also found that an 18-year-old driver is three times more likely to be in a car crash than a motorist of 48 years old.

Last year there were 12,000 crashes involving drivers between the ages of 17 and 19, with more than half of them resulting in parties sustaining serious or fatal injuries.

Mr McLoughlin said that they are looking into a suggestion to restrict anyone carrying passengers for six or nine months when they have first passed their test.

"There are suggestions about them only perhaps being allowed to take a family member," he said.

Other ideas which have been put forward to tackle the issue include implementing a curfew that prevents young drivers from getting behind the wheel at night.

Posted by Sarah Bailey

Transport Research News and Vehicle Safety News