It seems that almost every day there is another new story about inexperienced drivers who have killed themselves and others on the roads, often as a result of bravado, speed or drink.
I’ve thought in the past about ways of mitigating the risk of letting young, inexperienced drivers get behind the wheel and found myself rehashing some of these ideas on a motoring forum today.
Firstly, it seems in many of these crashes, the car involved is quite powerful and possible a comparatively large model. Obviously, the larger the car, the greater the inertia at speed and the results of a crash can be quite horrifying.
The obvious solution to my mind is to limit the power-to-weight ratio of cars available to new drivers. My target would be 70bhp/ton. This is the sort of power the novice driver will have experienced in a driving school car and will also be a controllable, basic, front-wheel-drive design. These cars would take time to reach high speeds so the their mean average speed would be low and due to their light weight would carry less inertia into crashes.
This requirement would obviously have to be enforced by the DfT during road-side spot-checks. Portable Rolling-Road machines could be employed to ensure the engines are not developing more power than the driver is licenced for and if these checks were carried at the usual DfT venue of public weigh-bridges, the power-to-weight ratio can be accurately checked.
Secondly, more powerful cars should require more training. The initial 70bhp/ton limit should be enforced for 2 years after the driver passes their test. No passengers should be carried for the first year unless the driver is accompanied by another qualified driver in the front passenger seat over 25 years old with 3 years experience. A curfew could possibly be enforced late at night to prevent new drivers becoming involved in drink-drive incidents after nights out or illegal street racing.
Beyond the 2 year probationary period, the driver would have to take more tests to qualify themselves to drive more challenging classes of car, the next step could start with a front wheel drive car up to 130bhp/ton. Other test could then be taken for rear-wheel drive, 4×4 and more powerful engines.
It would also be to everyones advantage to have a qualification requirement for motorway driving, probably to be completed after the 2 year probationary period. The standard of driving currently seen on the country’s motorways is nothing short of appalling.
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