YOUNG drivers are to be banned from carrying young passengers under radical changes to motoring rules previously rejected by a Stormont minister as an assault on civil liberties.
In a series of detailed new regulations on what new drivers can and cannot do with their vehicle, Environment Minister Alex Attwood yesterday said that he wants to stop new drivers up to the age of 24 from carrying young passengers for six months after qualifying.
The ban applies to passengers aged 14 to 20, except immediate family members, unless there is a supervising driver over 21 with three years’ full licence. That individual must be in the front passenger seat or the ban will still apply.
Mr Attwood also announced a consultation on cutting the age at which provisional driving licences will be available to 16-and-a-half and a compulsory one-year learning period before the test can be taken.
The SDLP minister also intends to increase the period of post-test restrictions from one year to two, remove the 45mph speed limit for learner and new drivers, allow learners to take motorway lessons and introduce compulsory logbooks for learners. The minister will also change the ‘R’ (restricted) plates for new drivers to ‘N’ (new) plates, bringing the Province into line with the Republic of Ireland.
Insurers said that the changes should cut insurance costs for young drivers by reducing accidents and thereby lowering their risk to insurers.
Mr Attwood’s reforms will require the approval of the Executive and are expected to be introduced in the Assembly later this year.
The SDLP man said: “These proposals would create the most radical change in the driver training regime for a generation. I know that the proposals will challenge our thinking.
“But the objective of better road safety with the ambition of zero road deaths on one hand and reduced driver premiums on the other makes a bold and informed approach the right approach. This is the core argument at the heart of the proposals.”
On the ban on young drivers carrying young passengers, he said: “The reason for this is simple. The risk of death and injury where a young driver carries people of his own generation escalates alarmingly when there are one, two or three passengers. We should move towards a vision of zero road deaths. We need to take radical action and bold measures to achieve this, in turn reducing insurance premiums.”
In comments released as part of a DoE press release, Otto Thoresen, from the Association of British Insurers, welcomed the minister’s “decisive action” and said Mr Atwood was to be “congratulated” .
But last year Finance Minister Sammy Wilson savaged a proposal by DoE officials — at that time under the control of his DUP colleague Edwin Poots — to restrict anyone under the age of 25 from driving at night and limiting the number of young passengers in their car.
In an article for the News Letter, Mr Wilson, a former Environment Minister, said that in his time at the DoE he strongly argued for personal liberties as well as government action to reduce road accidents.
He said that the “fanatics in the road safety lobby” were prepared to suspend personal liberties to reduce road deaths and described the DoE proposals as “daft”.
“As DoE minister I encountered this brigade. Indeed I had regular bouts with some of my officials who seemed to take the view that it didn’t matter how far we interfered with personal liberties so long as they could show a reduction in accident statistics.
“I used to joke that maybe we should lock everybody up so they couldn’t get into cars, then we could claim success — the worrying thing is that we now have a version of that policy out for consultation!”
Yesterday, Mr Wilson’s East Antrim DUP colleague, Alastair Ross, welcomed Mr Attwood’s proposals.
See Morning View, page 20