Consett Dad welcomes growing support for Graduated Driving Licenses
A new study shows 72 per cent of people support the proposal
The family of a teenager who died after the car he was a passenger in crashed are continuing calls for tougher laws more than four years after his death.
John Rowland's been campaigning for better road safety after his son, Andrew, was killed in a car crash in 2020, driven by an inexperienced driver. The car, that was driven by Dylan Brunton, did not have an MOT and had been bought the day before for just £100.
If accepted, the GDL would limit newly qualified drivers from carrying similar aged passengers in a vehicle for up to six months after passing their tests until they develop their driving skills independently.
Now, new polling carried out by More in Common, on behalf of The Road Safety Trust, shows widespread public support for many of the reported policies being considered by the government in its upcoming Road Safety Strategy - and appetite for further road safety legislation to protect young drivers.
Commissioned by the Trust and conducted by More in Common, the survey explores public attitudes towards key road safety measures, ahead of the Government’s forthcoming National Road Safety Strategy – the first such strategy in a generation.
There is a majority support for Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL), a phased licensing policy for young drivers that the government is believed not to include in the road safety strategy. 72 per cent support this, while 12 per cent oppose it.
John told us: "Andrew's case wasn't just a matter of a newly qualified driver, who was involved in the collision. It was a lot more complicated, but the the reality is at the end of the day, Andrew still lost his life. But it was still the one of the main contributory factors- it was an inexperienced driver."
"The fact that he didn't have a driving licence or he'd never had a driving lesson was even worse. And the car, I say it was totally unroadworthy. "
The idea of Graduated Driving Licences, this idea is not something which somebody's just pulled out of a party hat. The evidence has been stacking up for years and years.
Nobody is trying to take anything from somebody. If anything, what we're trying to give is youngster's longevity."
"There is only so much a driving instructor can sort of, get get across to you. But the only way you're going to truly get experience of how you're going to learn to drive a car is by driving the car on the road on your own.
What we don't want you doing is being out all hours of the night with a car full of your friends. And you know how distracting it is with phones, going music, texts coming through and all the other stuff.
Get yourself a little bit more confident, get a little bit more comfortable on the road and then after that, you're free to go for the rest of your life."
Earlier this year the Government confirmed it had no plans to add the GDL system to to the road safety strategy, which is due to be published soon.