Misanthrope Girl

The latest piece of bansturbation comes from the Association of British Insurers (ABI), the trade body representing much of the UK insurance industry.

In a statement released on Tuesday the ABI called for:

The ABI wants to see for learner drivers aged under 25:

• A minimum one-year learning period before taking the driving test. A minimum learning period applies in many other countries.
• A ban on taking intensive driving courses where this is the sole means of learning to pass the driving test. This would enable learner drivers to gain experience in a wider variety of road conditions.

For newly-qualified drivers aged under 25:

• All new drivers should hold a graduated driving licence for two years, at the end of which they should be required to pass a second test to ensure that they are safe to drive on all types of roads.
• The graduated driving licence would contain restrictions on the number of passengers that could be carried. This reflects the significantly increased accident risk when other passengers are in the car. It would also include restrictions on driving between 11pm – 4am, albeit with certain exemptions, such as where driving is necessary due to work.

Which is a long winded way of saying that new drivers from the younger end of the spectrum lack experience and so should have restrictions placed upon them. I’m sure though that their wish to only target these measures at the under 25s probably falls foul of age discrimination laws.

But why is the ABI proposing such changes? It can’t be that they are rent-seeking on behalf of themselves, seeing as a) not having car insurance is illegal and b) insurance premiums are rising year on year anyway*. Perhaps it simply is as Nick Starling, their Director of General Insurance and Health, says: “We must act to reduce the tragic loss of young lives on our roads”.

Will these proposals help with that though?

As we all know the only way to gain experience in a field is to spend time doing something so asking that learner drivers spend more time driving under supervision is perhaps a sensible measure albeit somewhat of a blunt instrument as some are quicker to learn than others. My concern though would be that it would simply delay the age at which the irresponsible subset hit the road unsupervised. If it were to happen though, then the intensive driving course would vanish, being no longer a viable idea. Also, isn’t helping learner drivers to pass their driving test the point of driving lessons, whether done in a week or over several months? The only people who are going to benefit from this are driving instructors as the poor bloodily wannabe motorist will havie to pay a lot more in start-up costs.

What about the restrictions on newly qualified drivers then? Limiting passenger numbers, banning them from the roads for certain hours of the night and, as the first line of the statement says “young novice drivers should not be allowed to drink any alcohol while driving”**.

As usual these do at first appear to be sensible but then you start thinking about them.

The passenger limit is obviously designed to stop carloads of teenagers and the accidents which have happened due to the drivers showing off to friends but will undoubtably hit more that just the intended targets. My brother, being a tee-totaler***, found himself being the designated driver of the family when out for meals once he was on the household insurance simply because it allowed the rest of us not to have to worry about how much we were drinking. Under these proposals such a thing wouldn’t be possible but is anyone really going to drive like a nutter with their parents in the car?

Similarly, the ban on night driving, whilst well intentioned, throws up questions. Are those who are working or going to/from work going to have to carry letters from their employer certifying that this is the case? What about those who intended to be home before curfew but get stuck in jams or break down? No doubt some women’s groups will protest that such a measure will make it more likely that some women will be attacked on the way home.

And as for the alcohol limit, well drink driving is already illegal anyway – as is dangerous driving.

What this statement hasn’t said is how they expect these measures, if implemented, to be enforced. Logically the only way for them to be so is via traffic police but those are a rare breed these days with most traffic offences being dealt with by roadside cameras – which as we all know are absolutely useless at catching people driving badly or under the influence. Given then that it is such driving that the ABI seeks to reduce, this seems like problem.

That is unless the ABI wants to put its money where its mouth is and take up traffic enforcement?