WEDNESDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2007

MS JOOLS TOWNSEND, MS BRENDA PUECH AND MRS JAN BERRY

  Q20  Chairman: Perhaps with blood coming out of the machine?

  Mrs Berry: It would probably not be that realistic but many of these kids who do not have any sense of fear are the ones who are playing around the tracks; the car goes back on and you start again, but in real life that does not happen.

  Q21  Mr Martlew: The pass rate for males is several percentage points higher than it is for females, but it seems that male novice drivers are having more accidents than female drivers. Is this fact alone evidence that the test is fundamentally not good?

  Ms Puech: That is certainly what RoadPeace believes. Too much reliance cannot be placed on the driving test because it is merely provides a snapshot of driving ability and technical competence.

  Mrs Berry: I agree that that is the figure at the moment, but as it is with maybe licensing, there is a trend in the other direction. Whereas I think men were involved in more accidents, for young novice drivers, there is a trend for the women now to be increasing at a greater rate than the male young novice drivers.

  Q22  Mr Martlew: On that point and beyond that, and perhaps Mrs Berry can answer first and the others afterwards, the number of young people who have licences is reducing and the number of young people being killed driving is increasing. What has changed and why?

  Mrs Berry: I think the number of young people that have their own cars has changed. That might be a factor. There are more cars on our roads than is probably good for us. That might be another factor, and therefore the risks associated with that are greater. I do not know how much impact these computer games and that type of impact will have on it either. There are loads of different reasons why that could be the case.

  Ms Townsend: I am not sure that I can answer for what has specifically changed.

  Q23  Mr Martlew: There is a lot of car culture now amongst young people that was not there five or 10 years ago?

  Ms Townsend: I think the culture of boy racers, if you like, has been around for a while but it certainly does seem to be prevalent at the moment. The real issue for us is what we can do now to address the problem. Aside from looking at the process of learning to drive and passing your test, we would also like to see more road safety education and we are particularly calling for road safety education to be a compulsory part of the national curriculum. The vast majority of young people reach the age of learning to drive with little to no understanding of the risks that they are facing and the strategies that they can take to reduce these risks.

  Q24  Chairman: Ms Puech, do you have an answer to why they are going up?

  Ms Puech: We have seen from amongst our members that a lot of fatalities are caused by unlicensed and uninsured drivers, so a lot of novice drivers, a lot of teenagers who are driving who are either in cars taken without permission or in stolen cars. That is the cause of a lot of fatalities, from what we see amongst our members. I could not say for sure whether that is linked to lack of enforcement and the decline in traffic policing, but it may be the reason.

  Q25  Mr Martlew: That leads me on to my next question which is this. We have the statistics of the number of young drivers killed. Do we know how many of these had not actually passed their test?

  Ms Puech: From anecdotal evidence, our members tend to be affected by novice drivers who are also unlicensed drivers.

  Q26  Chairman: Mrs Berry, I ought to know this. Is it not possible to identify that certainly in a fatality? Is that not one of the things that the police check?

  Mrs Berry: You would be able to know if the driver had a driving licence. That statistic must be available but I personally do not have that statistic. As Jools Townsend said earlier, this is not just about drivers who can be injured but about the accidents that they can cause to other people.

  Q27  Mr Martlew: A lot of the evidence that you have given us is that we should increase the age when people can get a licence. That is fine, but if you find more and more people are driving without a licence, it defeats the objective to some extent, does it not?

  Ms Townsend: I think there are other measures that we should be utilising to a greater extent to tackle that problem; for example, investment in more traffic policing and technology like automatic number plate recognition, which is proving a successful method of catching unlicensed drivers. In terms of uninsured drivers, perhaps part of the reason for the levels of uninsured driving is that we know that young drivers are twice as likely to make an insurance claim and their insurance claims are much higher, hence the fact they are paying much higher premiums.

  Chairman: I do not want to go into that for a minute. We must try to get to the bottom of this.

  Q28  Mr Martlew: We have a situation where we do not know why the number of young people being killed is increasing, even though the number of licence holders is going down. If we increased the age when people can drive, then there is a danger that people will drive without any instruction at all. Personally, I am in favour of giving them a learning experience of a year. Would you accept that in rural areas, like Cumbria, that would create some hardship? Would there be any argument for reducing the age when drivers or youngsters can start to learn?

  Ms Townsend: Research shows us that age has a clear effect on crash risk, so that the older you are when you pass your test, the less likely you are to crash within a year of driving. In terms of reducing casualties, probably the safest option would be significantly to increase the driving age.

  Q29  Mr Martlew: If we were all pensioners, it would be all right?

  Ms Townsend: However, we acknowledge that there are of course social consequences to that and therefore it is not something that the Government is likely to look into.

  Mr Scott: We are talking about two separate issues. There is an issue of people who are breaking the law and committing a criminal offence by driving without a driving licence. This, as I see it, is more about making sure that when people pass their driving test, they can get into their car and drive safely without being a danger to themselves or other road users. I agree with the comments about taking a year to learn to drive. I may be slightly biased because it took me various attempts to pass my driving test and certainly longer than a year but that might say more about my driving than the driving test.

  Chairman: You would not do very well on those psychosometric tests?

  Q30  Mr Scott: I would fail the psychosometric test without any problem, Chairman. I am not planning to go for any new jobs in the future! Do you think that the actual length of the test should be extended to one hour? Would it be more helpful if the test people were to get more of an understanding of whether someone is fit to have a driving licence?

  Ms Townsend: The system that we have suggested in terms of a graduated system is that you would have a minimum learning to drive period, the driving test and then a provisional period during which time there are certain restrictions placed on your driving, and then a second driving test. It is more of a staggered approach. Yes, it would be beneficial to have a longer driving test, which opens up possibilities for testing on different types of road to a greater extent. However, I think the priority from our point of view is changing the emphasis of the driving test so it is more about safe driving rather than technical skills and changing the whole process into a several stage approach to enable learners to develop their skills and experience gradually over time.

  Q31  Mr Scott: There is one further point. At the moment, if you pass your driving test, obviously you can go out and drive whatever car you wish to get into. Do you believe there should be restrictions after you have passed your test perhaps on the capacity of car you can drive in your first year or your second year, and that that should be limited perhaps to the smaller cc engines than those who are fortunate enough to be able to go out and jump into a Ferrari, let us say?

  Mrs Berry: If you were not going to introduce something in a similar way to what has just been described, and we had a graduated test, then that would be better than we have at the moment, although we should not underestimate the amount of damage that a lower cc vehicle can do in the hands of a boy racer. There is not one easy solution to this. The point made earlier was that there has to be a holistic solution with a graduated test over a longer period, greater experience behind the wheel. There is no doubt that the statistics show that if you did increase the age at which a person could drive, then you are going to reduce the number of fatalities and the serious injuries. That has happened in other countries and the probability is that the same effect would be felt here. I think there is a menu of different improvements that we could make to the testing regime and to the post-test regime that would improve both safety for the drivers and for other road users.

  Q32  Clive Efford: Ms Townsend, in your evidence you have recommended a graduated licence system. What evidence is there that a graduated licence system would be effective in reducing casualties and producing safer drivers?

  Ms Townsend: We have collected numerous case studies from other countries where graduated driver licensing has been introduced and has had a significant effect on casualties, reducing injuries among young people. I know there is a case in the written evidence we have provided. To give you another example, in Washington State in the US, annual fatal and serious crashes involving 16 and 17 year old drivers decreased by 59% comparing the two years previous to the two years after introducing graduated driver licensing. There are numerous other cases that we can look at whereby a graduated system has been introduced with certain restrictions placed on drivers during the novice driving period.

  Q33  Clive Efford: The DfT says that countries that have a graduated system have a problem similar to the UK's. What evidence do you have to refute the DfT's assertion?

  Ms Townsend: As I say, the case studies that we have collected all clearly show a marked decrease in casualties in road crashes involving young people.

  Q34  Clive Efford: Have you looked at the evidence that brings the DfT to that conclusion and can you refute that? Do you have anything that challenges what the Government has concluded?

  Ms Townsend: The DfT itself has cited statistics talking about a reduction in casualties that would result, it estimates, in the UK, from simply having a minimum learning period, which is part of what we are suggesting through graduated driving licensing. The DfT itself has cited statistics showing that there would probably be a significant reduction in casualties in the UK just from that measure alone. In addition to the minimum learning period, we are talking about restrictions such as a night time driving curfew and a limit on the number of passengers. There is a wealth of research showing that these are particularly high risk situations for young drivers to be in. The aim of these restrictions is to limit young people's exposure to these high risk situations until they have the experience under their belts.

  Q35  Clive Efford: Is there any evidence from the scheme that you have looked at that we just postpone the bad driving until the restrictions are lifted and, if so, what can be done to counter that?

  Ms Townsend: We have not found any evidence of that. If you look at research into types of risk taking that are prevalent among different age groups, we know that various types of risky behaviour, such as speeding and overtaking blind, are more likely to occur among young people. You could say that people are more likely to take this risky behaviour at a young age without the experience and, as they get older and develop the experience, they are less and less likely to take these types of risks anyway.

  Q36  Clive Efford: If there were a probationary or graduated system, should it be on time or should it be when extra training is taken or should it be for some other reason that the restrictions are lifted?

  Ms Townsend: The systems that we have looked at overseas work in several different ways. For example, you might have a novice driving period of 18 months during which you have these restrictions, but in some countries they have a system where if you pass your test and you are over the age of 25, it is only six months, or if you take an additional training course, it reduces. It is possible to put in place a system whereby there is a certain length of time but you can reduce that length of time by undergoing extra training, and equally you can extend the length of time if you commit any violations to the restrictions.

  Chairman: Ms Townsend, at some point we are going to have to frame a sensible set of pragmatic rules. Flexibility is not something lightly bound in government legislation of any colour.

  Q37  Clive Efford: That brings me to my next question which is about enforcement and complexity. From what you are describing, you recommend restricting passengers unless it is somebody who has had a driving licence for three years or is over the age of 25. We already have a number of complaints from the police about the amount of paperwork they have to go through when they stop someone in a car. Imagine the paperwork they would have to do, it would be something like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, if they were to stop them with all these different permutations of what makes the driver qualified to be on the road.

  Ms Townsend: From the information that we have been gathering from the United States in terms of enforcement of GDL, the main problem that some states have come up against is the fact that police officers do not have the power randomly to pull over drivers. Of course, you cannot tell the age or experience of a driver just when they are driving along. We would face a similar problem in the UK. However, the Government has recently suggested that it is considering giving the police powers to carry out random breath tests. If that was put in place, I imagine it would be fairly simple to extend those powers so that the police could carry out random testing on graduated driving licensing.

  Q38  Mr Leech: Specifically to Brake in relation to not allowing novice drivers to drive on motorways, as far as I was aware, statistically you are less likely to have accidents on motorways, and certainly with Norwich Union's pay-as-you-drive insurance, it is cheaper to drive on a motorway than it is on a 20 mph, 30 mph or 40 mph road. Why is it that you think that novice drivers should not be allowed to drive on what is considered to be the safest road?

  Ms Townsend: Firstly, yes, you are less likely to crash on a motorway but, if you are in a crash on a motorway, it is more likely to involve multiple fatalities. Secondly, although there is a lower crash rate on motorways, it does involve a different set of skills to driving on other roads. We have suggested that within a graduated driving licensing system, you would have, during the novice period, a number of compulsory hours of tuition, which would include motorway tuition. Hence, the fact that you would not be permitted to drive on a motorways until you have had that specialist tuition.

  Q39  Mr Martlew: On the issue of graduated licence, and you quoted the United States a number of times, what age do they normally start to drive in the United States?

  Ms Townsend: I believe it varies.