A campaign appealing for a government overhaul of the learning to drive system is being launched outside Parliament by the charity Brake, the Association of British Insurers and The Co-operative Insurance, to mark the start of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety

Together with young people and parents who have been bereaved through young driver crashes, they are calling on the Government to introduce Graduated Driver Licensing to reduce deaths and injuries caused by young and inexperienced drivers.

The calls come as a survey of young people aged 16 - 21 reveals dangerous attitudes to two top killers, speed and drink driving, adding weight to the campaign’s calls for a regulatory approach to tackling deaths and injuries caused by young drivers. It found:

  • Four in 10 young people (41%) think it’s ok to break 30mph by a lethal 10mph or more, which would give a driver no chance of stopping in time if a child ran out
  • Nearly a quarter (24%) think it is ok to drink up to one and a half pints of beer or equivalent alcohol before driving. One in eleven (9%) of young males think it is ok to drink more than this and get behind the wheel. (Any amount of alcohol impairs driving ability.)

The survey also found six in 10 (58%) young people believe that young drivers behave more dangerously with young passengers in their cars.

Improvements to the learning to drive system would address these areas and others, for example by restricting the time of day that young drivers can drive (to prevent late night speeding crashes), giving young drivers a lower alcohol limit, and restricting them from carrying young passengers. 

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