Select committee: Transport Committee
Conclusion 1
Fourth report: Road safety: young and novice drivers
Published 2 Mar 2021
Paragraph 32
Addressed to Department for Transport
Transport Committee Young and novice drivers All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Research conducted by the insurance industry shows that a significant proportion of older novice drivers—that is, drivers aged above 25 who are relatively new to driving—are involved in crashes. However, this is difficult to verify because official statistics are not recorded for this particular demographic. This absence of data is particularly disappointing given that our predecessor Committee recommended in 2007 that the Department, in collaboration with the police, “should collect the data necessary to understand the scale and nature of the crash involvement of novice drivers, independently of young drivers”.
From: Transport Committee, Fourth report: Road safety: young and novice drivers (HC 169), paragraph 32, 2 March 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 13 May 2021 (deadline 2 May 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government answers the Committee's nine recommendations "in as much detail as we can provide", agreeing with some, declining others, and giving later dates for several updates.
- On Graduated Driver Licensing, the Department "will not be commissioning any research into the social and economic consequences of GDL" and has "no plans to conduct research on or implement any form of a Graduated Driving License at this time".
- On intensive driving lessons, it agrees further study "may be useful" and will consider whether research should be part of the 2022/23 research programme, as this year's projects have already been agreed by Ministers.
- It can update the Committee on Driver 2020 in July 2021 but will have no findings by then; initial findings on telematics and the mentor agreement are expected in Spring 2022, with final findings in Spring 2023.
- On the modular learning pilot, it states it will not have an assessment against the criteria by October 2021, and expects to provide information on effectiveness by Spring 2023.