Young and Novice Drivers Policy Statements – May 2002
Young and novice drivers are more likely to be involved in road accidents than more experienced drivers. They are more likely to be involved in high-speed accidents, accidents in the dark, accidents when overtaking and when negotiating bends. They are also more likely than experienced drivers to be at fault for accidents.
There are many, inter-relating reasons why novice drivers have more accidents.
Age
Younger drivers are more likely to be involved in accidents because they are young, but once they have had one or two years driving experience the effects of age on their accident risk seems to disappear.
Experience
Lack of driving experience is a major reason for the higher accident risk of novice drivers, especially in their first three years of driving. As new drivers gain more driving experience, their accident rate begins to fall. However, the effects of increasing age and increasing driving experience combine, and together they produce even higher reductions in accident risk. Overall, the accident risk of 17 year old novice drivers reduces by 43% after their first year of driving experience. For 18 year old drivers, the reduction is 40%, for 19 year olds it is 38%. The accident risk of 25 year old novice drivers reduces by about one quarter after the first year of driving.
Attitude
Attitude and motivation are perhaps the most difficult factors to address, because they are very closely linked to personal characteristics and general attitudes and beliefs. Young, male drivers are particularly likely to choose to drive in deliberately risky ways, and are also more likely to have accidents. Young drivers consistently rate their own performance as above average and are more likely to equate ‘good’ driving with the ability to master the controls of the car at higher speeds. They are more willing to break speed limits, drive too close, cut corners, etc than more experienced drivers. There is evidence that poor attitudes towards driving stem from broader personal characteristics and attitudes, and general social deviancy.
Gender
Novice male drivers have higher accident rates than novice female drivers, and are more likely to commit driving offences. Young male drivers tend to drive at higher speeds than young female drivers, to adopt shorter following distances and to overtake more dangerously.
Driving Skills
Young drivers tend to have very good vehicle control skills (although for a period, these skills require much of their cognitive attention). However, they are very poor at identifying potential hazards, assessing the risk of the hazard resulting in an accident and tend to over-estimate their ability to avoid the hazard and accident.
Passengers
Young drivers, especially males, who carry young (peer) passengers are more likely to have an accident, possibly because they tend to show off or try to maintain an ‘image’ by the way they drive. This problem is worse if the passenger is male. However, carrying older passengers, or female passengers, may be a restraining influence on some young male drivers and reduce their likelihood of accident involvement.
The main way of trying to prepare new drivers for a lifetime of safe driving are driver training, testing and licensing systems.
Pre-driver Education and Training
Many countries, including Great Britain, offer voluntary pre-driver education programmes, which sometimes, but not always, include off-road driving practice. Education programmes that focus on positive attitudes, risk awareness and legal issues may help to prepare young people for learning to drive and to develop positive attitudes about driving style. However, there is concern that these courses, especially when they include driving practice, may be counter-productive. If they enable young drivers to pass their driving test (when they become old enough to take it) more quickly than they would otherwise have been able to do, but fail to have much impact on their driving attitudes and behaviour, they may do more harm than good. There is also concern that they may encourage unlicensed driving by those too young to obtain a licence.
Therefore, further research is needed to examine whether pre-driver education, especially when it involves driving practice, does improve attitudes and knowledge, or whether such courses accelerate the pace at which young people are able to pass their test without having any discernable influence on their likely driving behaviour afterwards. An assessment of the optimum format and content of such courses is also needed - are they more effective when actual driving practice is incorporated or not? Research should also assess whether or not these types of course encourage unlicensed driving.
Minimum Driving Age
Age increases the risk of being involved in accidents, so that younger drivers have a higher accident risk because (in part) they are younger. However, this seems to be a short-term influence, and not as important as driving experience. Raising the minimum driving age to 18 years might have some effect in reducing accident risk, but there are other social issues (such as access to employment, especially in rural areas) that would need to be considered before the minimum driving age could be raised. T here is some evidence that allowing people to begin to learn at a younger age may have positive results if linked to a graduated system where they are not allowed to take a driving test and drive unsupervised until 18 years.
Minimum Learning Period
An alternative approach would be to require learners to gain a minimum amount of driving practice. It is estimated that a 12 month minimum learning period could reduce road deaths and serious injuries by 800 to 1,000 and all casualties by 6,000 to 7,000; and a six month minimum learning period would save 120 deaths and serious injuries and about 900 casualties. Therefore, a minimum learning period of 12 months should be set.
The Log Book Scheme
The Government is currently consulting on proposals for making the Learner Driver Log Book scheme a mandatory requirement for all learners. RoSPA believes that a mandatory Log Book would be an effective means of ensuring that learners obtain a minimum amount of driving experience in different driving conditions.
Developing the Log Book Scheme to play a part in the driving test should be investigated. For instance, driving manoeuvres could be removed from the driving test and become part of the Log Book so that an instructor certifies when a learner has achieved consistency in performing each manoeuvre.
Learner and Novice Driver Mentoring
Research should be conducted to assess how parents and other mentors help learner drivers gain driving experience by supervising them during private practice. Good practice guidance and resources should be developed to help mentors to improve the safety performance of young learner drivers.
Mandatory Professional Instruction
Almost all learners take some lessons with a professional instructor. Therefore, making it mandatory to do so would probably have little effect, although there seem to be few disadvantages to doing so. Both professional instruction and private practice are important when learning to drive. There does not seem to be a consensus about what would be the optimum mix of private practice and professional instruction, nor what the minimum number of lessons should be.
Minimum Number of Professional Lessons
A minimum number of professionals lessons could only be set if professional instruction was mandatory. It is not clear how many professional lessons should be regarded as the minimum. Some learners take few lessons and some take a considerable number. Setting a minimum might mean that those learners who would otherwise have taken more than the minimum, would only take the minimum required. Therefore, setting a minimum number of lessons might be counter-productive.
Content of Driver Training
There is evidence that driver training courses tend to concentrate on vehicle control skills and place too little emphasis on attitudes, behaviour, risk assessment and hazard perception skills.
ADI Standards
ADIs should be required to publish their Grade, or whether they only hold a Trainee Licence, to allow learner drivers to make a more informed decision about their training provider. The recommendations from “Raising the Standards of Approved Driving Instructors” should be implemented.
The Driving Test
The Driving Test has improved in recent years, however, there is still little evidence to show whether it actually produces safer drivers, nor whether the behaviour of candidates during the test reflects the way they will actually drive once they have their full licence. It may be that no test could achieve this distinction, which may also be an argument for a probationary period, a graduated driver licensing system and/or regular re-assessments of driving ability.
Hazard Perception
It is clear that novice drivers have poor hazard perception skills and that this is one of the reasons for their higher accident risk. Research has shown that new drivers can be trained in hazard perception skills, which will reduce their accident risk. The computer based Hazard Perception Test to be introduced in Autumn 2002 is probably the most significant change to the Driving Test for decades and is warmly welcomed.
Further research into the Driving Test is underway and the government is expected to consult on possible changes to the Test in the near future.
Consideration should be given to ways of developing attitudinal and intended behaviour measurements that could be incorporated into the driving test.
Post-test Measures
The current post-test measures in Great Britain are limited in scope. Very few drivers take any further training or assessment once they have passed their driving test. The only drivers who are required to take further training are ones who have been ordered to do so by the Courts, or ones whose employer requires it as part of their terms and conditions of employment.
Drivers can voluntarily take further training, such as Pass Plus or courses offered by driver training providers such as RoSPA, the IAM, Gem and others, but there is little incentive for individual drivers to do so. Therefore, there is a need to develop new ways of encouraging drivers to continue to develop their driving skills after the test.
The HSE/DTLR Work-Related Road Safety Task Group recommendations that health and safety at work law be applied to on-road work activities, including occupational driving, and that employers should include measures to manage at-work road safety within their existing health and safety management systems, should be implemented as a priority.
Research should be conducted to establish the effectiveness of the Pass Plus Scheme and to identify ways to encourage more novice drivers to take it.
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