The proposals cover a wide range of road safety measures and are designed to ensure learner drivers are properly prepared before their test, including the chance to gain motorway experience with an approved driving instructor. The proposals include:
- learners allowed to take a motorway driving lesson with an approved driving instructor in a dual controlled car – this is designed to make drivers safer once they have passed their test
- a £2 million in-depth research programme will be launched to identify the best possible driver education, training and behaviour-change interventions for learner and novice drivers
These proposals appear to be another step along the road to allowing learners on motorways something MSA GB has been campaigning about for many years. However, I won’t hold my breath in 2007 the House of Commons Transport Committee recommended this and on the 8 Nov 2011 Mike Penning MP then Parliamentary Under – Secretary of State at DfT stated in a debate in the House of Commons that Learner drivers would be allowed on motorways. “I think we need to give people, particularly young people, the opportunity to learn how to drive on the motorway before they pass their test. That is why we will pass regulations to allow qualified driving instructors to take learners on to motorways.”
It should be noted that this is not just a matter of safety on motorways it also about educating all drivers that motorways are the safest and most economical roads to use. In July 2015 the AA Charitable Trust stated that “Almost half of motorists know friends or family who avoid driving on motorways with more than one in 10 women saying that they themselves avoid driving on motorways due to nerves. One quarter of drivers are even nervous when they know that family or friends are making a journey on a motorway. New figures show that one in 50 people, 13,000 per day, planning a route are driving extra miles by choosing routes that avoid motorways as they are too nervous to tackle the multi-lane roads.
Money for an in-depth research programme to identify the best possible driver education, training and behaviour-change interventions for learner and novice drivers is very welcome. However, will anything actually happen the research paper “Trial of the learner-driver logbook” some fifteen years ago concluded that: The overall first time pass rate of Logbook users was 79%. The large majority of these were 17 years old, a group for whom, nationally, there is a higher first time pass rate than for all Test candidates, at 52.4%. Even taking this into account, using statistical tests it was found that the higher first time pass rate of logbook users was significantly different from the national rate for 17 year olds. A great idea backed up by research supported by the majority of ADIs but never enacted. Will this research be any different we will have to wait and see.
Read the Road safety statement: working together to build a safer road system
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