The Department for Transport’s (DfT) refreshed road safety statement and 2 year action plan addresses road safety issues throughout the lifetime of roads users, from babies to the elderly. 

One of the key groups that the action plan will focus on is young drivers, and as was announced yesterday Graduated driver licensing (GDL) will also be explored. 

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/road-safety-statement-2019-a-lifetime-of-road-safety

At present we do not have GDL in Great Britain. These post-test licence restrictions often include controls as to the time of day the restricted licence holder can drive unsupervised or restrictions on the passengers they can carry and come in addition to any tougher penalties new drivers incur for traffic violations (such as in the UK).

When DfT announced they would explore GDL yesterday (18/07/2019), this meant the commissioning of research to explore the social and economic consequences of introducing Graduated Driving Licence (GDL). It will be interesting to see what comes of this research. 

The action plan sets out sets of actions for people, vehicles and roads. The action plan concludes that future road safety must look beyond road users and interventions which support changes in behaviour. Future investment in vehicle technology, in infrastructure, and in our evidence base are all part of the building blocks of future success.

Read the full document here.