To think yes actually it IS time to legislate to stop teenage drivers driving a car full of their mates around at night?

[northernlurker]

Very distressing story on BBC here. If you don't want to click - it's 5 teens killed last night in the same car. Two girls, three boys. I have a child the same age as some of them and it's just so sad. I've always thought that you couldn't legislate for this but something has to be done. There was a triple fatal crash on the same bit of road also involving teens a few years ago and it happens again and again. The first funeral I ever went to was a girl in the year above me at school. There were 4 in that car. Two killed, one badly injured and one slightly hurt.
If teenage drivers were limited to no more than two passengers under the age of 21 would it help?

2 a year KERALA ? Don't believe you, sorry. I have lived in a very rural area for 13 years now, and I'm a teacher so I know the local teenagers. In that whole time we've lost 2 young people on the roads from my school - and one of those was a pedestrian. Rural roads are more dangerous and teenagers are more likely to have accidents, but that rate of attrition is very, very, very unlikely.
DD is 18 and has been driving since she was 17. It is scary, but I think limiting them as some posters have suggested is unreasonable, for all the reasons others have said.

Eastpoint makes the point I have read too - carrying passengers does mean more chance of an accident with teens. Some US states have the rule where teens cannot drive at night except with family members or to and fro work. I personally don't think the age you can learn at needs to be changed but I do think some more regulation of teen behaviour is needed.

I want to be very clear btw that my OP was NOT designed to blame anyone involved in that situation. 5 famiilies are grieving and that's the concern here. This scale of tragedy should be preventable. It's not about blaming anybody and I hope that if the friends or family of anybody concerned are reading this they can be assured of that.

Ithink YABU.

Both my DSes passed their tests at 17. DS1 drove our cars for the first couple of years, he hasn't had an accident. He is now learning to drive army vehicles, lorries and buses. He is almost 20. It is ridiculous to think he should be restricted as to when he can drive, who he can drive and what he can drive.

DS2(17) has his own car, he passed his test 2 months ago. He has a black box fitted. I know he can't speed or drove stupidly because I get the data sent to me. He has driven safely and propery and has earned the maximum discount available.

We live rurally, DS2 uses his car to get to school and to work. It is a great help as I am disabled and DH is Forces. DS1 did his Pass Plus 4 months after passing and DS2 will be doing the same.

So perhaps the implementation of black boxes would help?

Obviously not every young driver is dangerous, of course not, but they are increased risk of accidents so looking at ways to prevent accidents can only be a good thing?

I don't believe 2 teenagers were killed a year, either Cardi. We lived in the arse end of nowhere when I was a teen, I can't remember any teen getting killed in a car accident.

There hasn't been any to my knowledge in our local area either. Infact the last two people to die in RTAs were 60+yo males.

I think black boxes would help Nicky. I know some of DS2's friends haven't got them because they don't want to be monitored all the time, but I didn't want DS2 bowing to peer pressure and driving faster than he should.

More and more insurance companies will only insure young and/or new drivers if they have a black box fitted...maybe this needs to be more widely spread nd a condition of more insurance policies, esp in higher risk categories.

DD has a black box. I think they can be helpful. They massively reduce insurance premiums so must have an effect - I don't know how/why anyone affords insurance without them!

I do think controlling a small car with 5 people in it (or more) is very different to controlling a more powerful car with only yourself and 1 passenger in it for lots of reasons. Perhaps learners could be encouraged to have lessons with other people in the car, to help them understand how the weight and behaviour of passengers makes driving harder.

I also think that non-driving friends make the worst passengers for new drivers. Other drivers often know when to be quiet and let the driver concentrate, whereas non-drivers just won't realise when a situation is more difficult/dangerous.

However, I also think that if you passed this law, it would have to apply to all drivers, regardless of age- are 3 distracting children really that much less of a danger than three distracting teens?

It also sounds like this crash may have been caused by someone else's poor driving. I do think mandatory retests- perhaps one after 5 years and then one every 10 years could help keep people driving more safely, and maybe have enforcement cameras looking for all bad driving, not just speeding. There should also be a limit on the number of tests you can take- one girl I knew failed her test 7 times before passing on the 8th attempt. I doubt she was really a safe driver when she passed.

There is also a stretch of road near me where teenagers occasionally drive too fast and crash- luckily most of them walk away, but some don't. However, lots of older people do crash their too. Really, the road is no longer suitable for the volume of traffic driving on it, and should be improved to make it safer, but this would be expensive and so is unlikely to happen.

Does it help for young people to wait until they are a bit older before learning to drive if possible?

I dont think it would work.
Ive just passed my test a few months ago. I was 21. I have 3 kids under 5. 1 with sn and a lot of health problems. Ive lost count of The amount of times ive been to gp/ooh/hosp since I passed

those driving need to stop showing off. Thats what it comes down to. Drive like your life depends on it- not like a maniac

i think there should definitely be some restrictions on the number of passengers - maybe to only 1 passenger unless there is someone 25 years + in the car.

We live in a rural area and there have been several deaths/near misses on local roads. I agree with SlowlorisIncognito about non-driving passengers being the most dangerous and I think if you have 4 teenager passengers in a car there is almost certainly going to be behaviour which will be distracting, particularly for an inexperienced driver.

I agree with not having a car full of teens but I don't agree with only1 passenger unless theres 25+ in the car etc as that would leave a lot of people in a bad place like myself. Theres no way I would be ableto take ds1 who has asd, sn, is tube fed and I have 2 other younger dc. That rule would really fuck things up for us.

If the problem is teens with teens why shouldn't that be the rule?

I think it would be worth restricting passengers of a similar age group to one. It would reduce distraction, and also the additional hazard of the car being heavier affecting the handling and braking.

I find a chatty toddler mildly distracting, but I can zone off from him when additional concentration is required. Lively friends and loud music are harder to manage.

Yes, I think this would be a good idea. Would also like to see tougher restrictions on distracting things inside vehicles (phones etc.--even handsfree phones are a massive cause of distraction.)

And yes, the rule should be fellow teenagers, not children. Otherwise that could potentially create a problem for, say, a 20-year-old mum who needs to drive her toddler or baby around.

The minimum driving age was set at 17 in the days when people went out to work at 15. Since most young people are now in education until they are 21 it would make sense to increase the age.

On all other threads about driving someone always comes along to say it's a privilege not a right, so all those shouting about teens having to get to work etc etc, surely the same applies?

It's a big problem with the whole motor insurance industry in that it doesn't count for the individual. Girls are statistically safer than boys, but now they can't have cheaper insurance for example.
I've been driving 8 years now, passed test at 17. No points, no claims, no accidents and Ive done just coming up to 110k miles in those 8 years,many at night, probably 5% abroad. Thankfully I beat these restrictions coming in, but I'd never have been able to afford my own car and to insure it these days. Even in my first year I only just tickled £1k, in a 1.6 Ka sport hatchback, my younger brother now is over £2k, with a black box in a 0.9l Citroen C1. It's already getting harder for youngsters to gain any experience at all. If you moved it to 25, you'd just have a load of 25 yr old inexperienced drivers on the road.

The worst distraction I've ever personally witnessed was a mother faffing with 3 young children and what appeared to be a DVD headrest thing veering across lanes on the M25. Being distracted by passengers isn't limited to the under19's.

I'm never a fan of cotton wool laws and regulations. Surely it's better to educate people to make the right decision rather than taking that decision away. Sometimes people need to learn for themselves. I'd be more in favour of scrapping licence points for new drivers (in first 2 years for example) of any age where getting points just revokes your licence, you get a fine and you have to take your test again. This wouldn't penalise the well behaved sensible teens but would deter those who are boy racers etc

YANBU

I've always thought that teenage, freshly licensed drivers, impulsively showing off (at worst) to mates in the back seat, or simply being distracted by them, are some of the most dangerous creatures on the road.

My state limits the times of day that drivers 16-18 can drive (but they are allowed to drive to and from work outside those hours), but does not restrict the number of passengers.

Lots of teenagers are in education and working so that is why they have cars. DS2 bought his car from his wages, we insure it because we insured DS1. He has a 1.2l 75 BHP Renault Clio. It costs us £1137 for his insurance. He has earnt an £82 discount to come off in December. The same car would cost DS1 £634 to insure with no black box.

DS2 mainly drives in the day. If he takes passengers,it's usually only 1 or 2. He has driven at night with 3 passengers, but they are all new drivers too so they sat quietly.

You could change the age to 19/21/25 and you would still get new drivers driving like bloody idiots, just as you get older more experienced drivers doing the same.

At my 6th form college...a car full of kids from my year crashed. they were on the way to a party, and hadn't yet been drinking. Only one survived. Apparently the driver wasn't used to driving on a cold night, and the windscreen started to mist up. They were thought to have been looking down at the heater controls, not at the road, when they crashed. Their last words were reported to have been "Stop breathing everybody, you're misting it up". 4 of the 5 people on board did indeed stop breathing.

Sorry, I didn't know them well...but even now, more than 20 years later, it gives me a chill.

We have laws as others have described above limiting how many passengers new drivers under a certain age can carry, and also limiting their driving at night. Also there is zero tolerance for any alcohol intake if they are driving.

When I was a teenager in the UK I lost three male friends in one year in car crashes :-(

I agree that having more than 1 passenger in the car can be distracting, although it's not just teenagers - drunk anyones can be distracting and stupid. Teenagers and new drivers might be less able to handle it though.

But I suspect that the extra weight in the car, especially if they're not used to handling a full car all the time, might be a large contributing factor as well. Many cars do not handle as well when they're full, to say nothing of increased braking distances; and if you're a new/inexperienced/young driver, you might not be aware of that, nor be as able to deal with the unexpected as someone with more experience.

So for that reason I would also like to see restriction on the number of passengers that young new drivers are allowed to take in the car.

It still won't stop every bad accident of course but it might reduce the numbers. We had a bad one here last week, just up the freeway from us - a P-plater, aged 21 (so still under restrictions, including zero alcohol and a maximum speed of 100km/h instead of the standard 110) was zooming up the freeway at around 200km/h, weaving in and out of cars, until he misjudged one, rammed her up the backside and forced her over the edge of the road into the very shallow creek below. She is in hospital with multiple broken bones and injuries, he was arrested and shown to be drunk.

My heart goes out to the family of those poor teens and everyone else affected by RTAs.