ROAD safety campaigners are pushing for stricter rules to be placed on new drivers in a desperate bid to crackdown on fatal accidents.
Measures excluding new drivers from carrying passengers were overlooked in a massive proposed shake up of road safety regulations.
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It comes after it emerged last week that ministers were drawing up plans to overhaul road safety rules.
Under the proposed shake up drivers over 70 would be subject to regular eye tests and would be banned from the road if they failed.
A measure to lower the drink drive limit from 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath to 22 micrograms was also being considered.
The proposed rule changes for England and Wales do not include any mention of restrictions on new drivers, something campaigners said was an oversight.
One in five new drivers crashes in their first year on the roads and male drivers between the ages of 17 and 24 are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than older motorists.
Edmund King, president of the AA, has said that the driving law shake up needs to focus on an “overlooked reckless” group.
A suggested limit on the number of same-age passengers new drivers are allowed to have in their car could be the answer Mr King says.
He added: “We estimate if that policy was adopted in the UK, it would save at least 58 lives and at least 934 serious injuries.
“It would cut the young road deaths by between 20 and 40 per cent.”
The campaigner’s policy would see newly qualified drivers slapped with a limit on how many of their “peers” they can carry in their motor for six months after passing their test.
According to Mr King countries like Australia and Canada, which have similar rules, recorded a fall in crashes and serious injuries of between 20 and 40 per cent.
He rejected claims that the rule would limit young drivers freedoms saying: “There is no freedom in being wrapped around a tree at 2am in the morning.”
Other campaigners agree with charity IAM RoadSmart recognising evidence that restricting passengers of a similar age in the vehicles of new drivers can make reduce risk.
The charity raised concerns over how such a ban could be enforced however.
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Proposed rule changes currently under consideration mark the largest overhaul of road safety laws since the Road Safety Act in 2006.
The news of transport Secretary Heidi Alexander‘s planned reforms comes amid mounting evidence of increasing deaths and serious injuries on Britain’s roads.
Last year 1,633 people died in road traffic accidents, while nearly 28,000 were seriously injured.
This worked out to the equivalent of about one motoring casualty every 18 minutes.
The new road safety strategy, aimed at tackling the rising number of injuries and deaths, is due to be published in autumn.
Edmund King said such a strategy was “long overdue”.
He said: “It is in everyone’s interests to tackle road safety and bring the levels of death and serious injuries down significantly.”
Potential new safety laws on driving
- Reduce the drink-drive limit from 35 micrograms per 100ml of breath to just 22 micrograms
- Punish drivers with penalty points if their passengers fail to wear seatbelts
- Banning over-70s from driving if they fail mandatory eye tests, conducted every three years when they renew their licence
- Medical tests for conditions such as dementia for older drivers
- Make it easier for police to bring prosecutions for drug-driving by having roadside saliva tests be permissible as evidence rather than blood tests
- Criminal penalties for driving without insurance
- Measures to tackle so-called ghost plates which cannot be read by automatic number-plate recognition cameras
