Is a curfew the answer to cutting road deaths?

Fool 5000 · 04-05-2006 02:18PM #1

Young motorists who have just passed their test could face night-time curfews in a bid to cut the number of 17-20 year olds killed or seriously injured on our roads every year.

The proposals, set out in a recent British government-sponsored study by the Transport Research Laboratory, also suggest preventing young motorists from carrying passengers under 21 and graduated licensing, a system that is used in Canada and parts of Australia.

The study criticises the poor competence of learners taking their driving test and has questioned whether the 40-minute practical examination is still an adequate challenge for increasingly demanding road conditions.

Concern for the reliability of the driving test has been heightened by an increase in the number of deaths among young drivers.

The number of young motorists killed on Britain s roads, aged under 20, rose from 120 in 2000 to 151 in 2004.

Young drivers are catapulted onto our roads after passing the test with no experience of driving on a motorway, on roads at night or in adverse weather conditions and one-in-five drivers is involved in a crash during their first year of driving.

The DIAmond Advanced Motorist Organisation believes better education and training is the answer to reducing casualties on our roads.

By gaining further training after passing the current L-test motorists will be more equipped with the attitudes needed to stay safe on the road and the skills needed to survive driving.

DIAmond Advanced Motorist General Manager Eddie Barnaville said: Imposing a curfew on young drivers is not a way of solving the problem, although it will stop them from driving at night, it won t teach them how to be safe on our roads.
We need to invest in educating our young drivers so they are safe drivers anytime of the day or night, which is why we recommend all drivers take their advanced motoring assessment.

The DIAmond Advanced Motorist Assessment is a course designed to give drivers a guiding hand through situations that may have not been covered in the car in earlier training.

The course covers modules in town driving, all weather driving, night driving, driving on dual carriageways and driving safely on motorways and is available to any motorist wishing to improve their skills on the road.

Stopping people from driving at certain times of the day and night is not the answer to safer roads, more education and training is.

A bit too far...? :mad:

Pfungstadter · 04-05-2006 02:33PM

New Zealand has a curfew for learner drivers.

Think that should be brought in,
no L-Plates on the road between 10pm and 6am

shouldn't be on the road anyway.

FillSpectre · 04-05-2006 02:53PM

I can't see it working the simple truth is the people dying on the roads are a result of people not obeying rules that simple. Arogance of youth and arogance or location. People in rural areas simply think it is OK to drink drive and speed. If you say anything against them you get the whole "well down home it is different". The state should but in a charge to insurance companies for the number of people killed due to driver error. The rates would improve drastically. A huge portion of traffic in Dublin is non -dublin people driving cars becasue they need it to down home or to go home at the weekends not for their commuting.

Ah what you going to do?

dowlingm · 04-05-2006 06:01PM

In Ontario, the first licence you get is G1 - like the provisional you're supposed to have a licenced driver with you and you must have zero blood alcohol. The second is G2, zero BA but can drive unaccompanied with the following stipulation:

* The number of young passengers that teen G2 drivers can carry will be limited from midnight to 5 a.m.
* Initially, G2 drivers 19 or under can carry only one passenger aged 19 or under.
* After the first six months, and until the G2 driver earns a full G licence or turns 20, they can carry only three passengers aged 19 or under.

Lennoxschips · 04-05-2006 11:46PM

How about teaching people to drive properly?

APM · 04-05-2006 11:53PM

they need to sort out the waiting lists for the tests before they do anything! 60 weeks (which is what I've almost being waiting for my test) is a disgrace.

When the testing system isn't flawed any more then they can look at fixing everything else, no? The reason (imo) for the extremely high amount of learner drivers on the road is to do with people can't just apply for, and do a test within a reasonable amount of time

John R · 05-05-2006 12:09AM

The licence issue needs sorting but will it have a big effect on road deaths and bad driving? I think not.

After driving for 2-3-4 yesrs on a provisional most people get full licences but from what i've seen their driving changes not one bit either side of getting the licence.

The people who fill their cars full of mates and go speeding around the countryside of an evening will go to a test centre, drive like a granny, pass or fail the test and then speed around the sticks same as the night before.

What is the point of introducing another restriction? The current ones are not enforced properly why would this be any different.

Random · 05-05-2006 12:59AM

More bollocks. Do some proper testing. Sort out the "fail your test and drive home" lark we have in this country.

Chris_533976 · 05-05-2006 04:29PM

Im not going to go into my usualy rant about this topic, but suffice to say get rid of provisional licences altogether and have mandatory driver training with a thorough test at the end.

Course this cant be done until the waiting list is at least half of what it is, and that cant be done because of the Driver Testers Union.

John R · 05-05-2006 04:47PM

Chris_533976 wrote:

, and that cant be done because of the Driver Testers Union.

The cliched "it's all the union's fault" arguement again.

From a short interview on RTE a few weeks ago a union rep stated that a recruitment drive that they approved of had been halted by the government and there were a large number of acceptable candidates identified that could be taken on for training immediately.

Is a curfew the answer to cutting road deaths?

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