Car accident news
24/09/2010

Ban on night driving for young motorists

According to new research, the number of car accidents involving young drivers could be dramatically cut if younger and inexperienced drivers were banned from driving after dark, drinking alcohol and carrying teenage passengers.

The benefits of Graduated Licensing (GDL) were being promoted at a safety conference in London yesterday with research supporting GDL from Cardiff University.

Similar schemes are already successfully operating in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of the United States.

Under the scheme, drivers would face the proposed bans for two years after passing their driving test.

Dr Sarah Jones, a researcher from Cardiff who helped conduct the study, looked at every road accident in the UK from 2000 to 2007 involving drivers aged 17 to 19 to estimate how many lives would be saved by GDL restrictions.

Speaking of her findings she said, "It's not only lives that would be saved. Insurance costs should drop substantially if the number of crashes involving young drivers were reduced."

Out of the 91 people that are killed on average every day in the UK in car accidents, one third of them will be under 25.