Probationary Driving Licences

The petition is entitled introduce a Graduated Driving Licence to include a two year probationary period after passing the practical test and the explanatory notes say

"During this probationary period newly qualified drivers must display P plates and must not carry more than one young passenger unless there is an adult over the age of 25 present (excluding parents carrying their own children). Drivers would not receive a full licence until they had safely completed this period which could be extended following traffic offences. This type of licence is the only measure shown internationally to have cut the rates of death and injury in this group."

This appears to be a better-phrased version of the petition I talked about in A Variation on Driving Ages. It doesn't discriminate against young people, and while it doesn't provide direct evidence, my prodding has indeed shown that (per the Department for Transport), several countries in the EU do indeed have measures like this, which presumably they believe to be effective. (I haven't actually found any evidence that they're effective as such. But I've found plenty of evidence that people believe they are, possibly for good reasons. Which is a start.)

The only thing - aside from "more bloody duplication" - that bothers me about this petition is the "not having other young people in the car without adults" bit. I suppose I see what it's getting at - the risk of young people inciting each other to idiocy. (And goodness knows I remember being in a race between two 18-yr-olds when I was 17. Terrifying. It happens.) Or perhaps rather than "young people" the petitioner merely means children, to not put them at risk or something. The DfT link doesn't suggest any other countries have this practice, however, so I'm not sure why the petitioner thinks it should be added.

OK, I'm biased. I grew up in rural Gloucestershire where public transport verged on non-existent. It was an enormous relief to my mother when my friends got old enough to drive so she no longer had to drive 30-mile round-trips regularly to take me to and from rehearsals. And of course it was a huge boon to one's social life when people started to be old enough to drive. Notwithstanding the aforementioned racing incident.

On the other hand, I'd probably add zero-alcohol-wossnames to the restrictions. Austria has this, and so too (from Wikipedia) do several Australian states.

At any event: a nice sensible petition overall, which is disadvantaged by being merely a sensibly-written version of a previous one.