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***PRESS RELEASE from the DRIVING INSTRUCTORS ASSOC.***
For immediate release - 7 May 2008
GOVERNMENT PUTS VOTES AHEAD OF YOUNG LIVES IN IGNORING TRANSPORT COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS
The Driving Instructors Association has described the Government's consultation paper on Learning to Drive, released this morning by Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, as a 'catastrophic missed opportunity', and a 'gross dereliction of duty' in ignoring the recommendations made in last year's Transport Committee Report on Novice Drivers which will 'almost certainly result in the death of more young people on our roads'.
In the wake of disproportionate and rapidly worsening casualty statistics among young drivers, rather than follow the recommendations made by the Transport Committee in radically overhauling the training process, the Government has chosen instead to focus on revamping the driving test - already one of the toughest in the world. In doing so the DIA believes the Government has put electoral concerns ahead of road safety and shamefully failed to grasp the nettle in reducing the appalling level of teenage casualties on our roads.
Chief among the recommendations in the Transport Committee report was a 12-month minimum learning period with a logbook-based syllabus requiring the input of a qualified driving instructor, and a series of post-test restrictions placed on novice drivers, such as a zero alcohol limit and a prohibition on carrying passengers during hours of darkness.
Instead, in a monumental act of hubris in the face of prevailing wisdom from road safety campaigners, the Government has said that it is not persuaded by the case for regulated learning and post-test restrictions.
In the executive summary to the consultation it writes: "We have looked at the merits of limiting the way learners can learn, or placing restrictions on drivers who have just passed their test. We think that an approach based on education and incentivisation will work better than one based on regulation and restriction."
Rejecting the overwhelming case for mandatory lessons with a qualified instructor, it says: "Learners are free to choose how they learn, whether that is with family and friends or with a registered driving instructor. We do not intend to change this."
Yet perversely, in the same document, the Government goes on to make the case for tightening up the qualification process for instructors and introducing a blatantly unfair star rating system to help pupils in choosing an instructor.
Stephen Picton, Editor of Driving Instructor, said: "By ignoring the recommendations of the Transport Committee and placing the emphasis on reforming the testing rather than the training process for learner drivers, this increasingly lame Government is placing popular decision making before lives. The consultation paper represents a catastrophic missed opportunity and a gross dereliction of duty by a Government desperate not to lose any more votes, which will almost certainly result in the deaths of more young people on our roads."
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