Viscount Simon
Viscount Simon is President of the Driving Instructors Association and GEM Motoring Assist, as well as being a Vice Chairman of PACTS. He is one of the ninety hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords and sits for the Labour Party.
The age group 16-29 are responsible, within their first two years of motoring, for 42% of fatalities on our roads. We shouldn’t blame them for their inadequacy. How can the system help them to be better?
The testing process in this county needs to be reformed, one which tests that learners can drive safely, not just master how to control a car and there is also a need to help drivers develop and maintain high standards for life, especially if they drive for work.. Learning has always taken place before long term retention by being able to read and research a topic with assistance from qualified individuals. The publishing of a question bank does not encourage long term retention and should, therefore, be abandoned so that candidates who wish to learn to drive study the whole syllabus and work through a series of workbooks to understand and gain long term knowledge for safer driving.
I wonder if the DSA should channel their efforts towards the assessment of driving ability and let qualified instructors certify the manoeuvres prior to a driving test thereby allowing more time on the driving test for examiners to assess driving ability.
Despite the fall in the number of road deaths most recently published we cannot be complacent because further reductions are possible and, indeed, preferable. Better learning must be part of that process of further reduction.
The idea of driving instructors completing the basic manoeuvres is a good one but these will be undertaken in newish cars with modern controls and braking systems.
Once young drivers have passed their test and go on to buy a car, they have to pay so much for insurance that there is little left to buy a decent car. The average age of a young driver’s first car is around 13 years old - this is before EuroNCAP safety ratings came in and these cars do not respond the same as the cars they were taught to drive in - who teaches them to drive these cars?
It is a vicious circle and one that needs to be broken before real progress is made. We have already achieved this on a commercial basis by controlling the engine size, the age of car and the level of training; then coming up with low-cost insurance. In many urban areas we can sell and insure a year old small car for less than the cost of insurance alone. That is a frightening state of affairs.
The results speak for themselves. Less than 7% of the drivers on our scheme have been involved in a collision whether fault or non fault and this compares to 22% of drivers not on the scheme. Some of this is down to the car, some down to the additional training but most of it is down to attitude.
There are now 10 car manufacturers actively supporting this project to make driving safer for young drivers, their passengers and other road users and without their support we do not have a scheme.
Comment by Nigel Lacy — February 2, 2009 @ 1:36 pm