On 17th February Nick Ravenscroft reported on BBC Breakfast that government ministers are considering introducing driving lessons in schools for children as young as 11. He confirmed that young drivers are disproportionately involved in road traffic accidents – only 8% of drivers fall within the age bracket of 17 – 24 but this age group accounts for 30% of those killed whilst travelling in cars.
Motoring journalist Quentin Willson supports this initiative and feels it is good to start teaching driving skills early to get road safety messages through to young people.
Although critics of the scheme are concerned that teaching people as young as 11 to drive may increase joyriding by young people, a similar initiative in Sweden saw the accident rate among young people fall by 41%.
At Rix & Kay one of our specialist areas involves dealing with serious personal injury cases as a result of road traffic accidents so we are aware that accidents often involve young and less experienced drivers.
We see that the consequences of a serious personal injury can also have more of an impact on a young person because a catastrophic injury will affect them for the rest of their lives, potentially causing their life to follow a very different path than had the accident not happened.
