'A year of lessons' for new drivers: proposal

New proposal misses the point, says road safety campaign

By PH Staff / Wednesday, 20 September 2006 / Loading comments

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) reckons that new drivers need a year of lessons, claiming that the measure would cut 1,000 serious injuries and deaths among young drivers in the UK each year. It says too that the number of passengers accompanying new drivers should be limited at night.

Road safety campaign Safe Speed reckons the ABI has missed the point. The campaign said it agrees that driver skill is key to road safety, and that higher standards of initial training would lead to improvements. It notes though that the 'year of lessons' proposal will not deliver the greatest benefit for least cost and misses the point.

The problem is that key driving skills such as observation and anticipation are learned by experience rather than taught, according to Safe Speed. This leads to an opportunity to improve road safety through influencing the quality of experience rather than extending formal training.

Safe Speed argues that the quality of experience comes from information and beliefs and these in turn come from cultural influences. In industrial health and safety, cultural factors are seen as key to delivering safe practices, said Safe Speed. This opportunity has so far been completely missed in road safety and indeed, modern policy provides a strong negative cultural influence, according to the campaign, focusing on legal compliance rather than safe behaviours.

Campaign founder Paul Smith said: "Everyone agrees that better drivers would make our roads safer. But new driver crash risks are more associated with lack of experience rather than lack of training. Simply upping the training cannot even begin to make up for the lack of experience. Instead we need to provide 'key support' for drivers in the process of gaining experience.

"We should also be concerned that proposals which delay the availability of a full driving licence will lead directly to an increase in dangerous unlicensed driving.

"The false and oversimplified road safety messages that come with speed cameras have done great damage to the process of becoming experienced. Society is telling them to invest substantial effort in remaining legal rather than becoming safe. Speed cameras have broken the essential link between legality and safety.

"Further driver training is best delivered after a few years' of experience. It is only then that the finer points make proper sense by fitting into a framework of experience. It is no accident that Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) training normally fits this pattern."

Smith said that Stephen Haley's new book 'Mind Driving' (published yesterday) makes it clear that 'driving lesson skills' are not the same skills that actually keep us safe.