By Richard King, Ticker founder and CEO
Today, all the morning news shows featured the AA, including their President Edmund King, proposing graduated driver licensing (GDL) for new drivers. It’s a topic that comes up every few years: should we tackle young driver crashes by restricting their behaviour on the road?
Similar to countries including Australia, Canada and Sweden, the AA is proposing a graduated licensing system that would prevent drivers under 21 carrying passengers their own age for six months after passing their driving test.
Interestingly, the last government to actually debate graduated licensing was Labour, who rejected it because it’s a vote-loser. We’ve already seen this government recently upsetting older voters, so are they now likely to restrict younger people?
In 2019, it was the Conservatives that initiated the Driver 2020 research project, which looked at a number of support programmes including telematics and mentoring for newly qualified drivers. This subject unfortunately seems to have got lost in the conversation.
Of course, there’s no doubt that graduated licensing would save lives. But I would have liked to have seen AA’s proposal go a bit further and include connected insurance (telematics).
This proposal for GDL mainly addresses the times when the car is full of young passengers, which is vital but sadly only one part of the overall problem. Connected insurance is a safety intervention that’s there for every journey.
The vast majority of young drivers already opt for connected insurance because they want the access to lower premiums, but it also provides a safety net of ongoing feedback and peace of mind for parents.
With such large-scale adoption and social acceptance, shouldn’t we now be guiding the new government to include connected insurance in their considerations?
