Make Learning To Drive More Affordable

Can you be too careful. Have, as a society, we wrapped ourselves up in cotton wool because we're scared at what might happen if we didn't. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has mushroomed in recent years and the costs of funding this are placed directly on companies and individuals with what seems our blessing.

Is this right? Whilst there can be no serious argument that living and working in a safe and secure environment is preferential, society as a whole seems to have got it into it's head that no one should ever be injured or killed ever - and damn the cost in making it so.

It is a fact that accidents happen, they always have and always will. The alternative to a state led safety police, is to allow society to take responsibility for it's own affairs and put the accountability onto the individuals themselves.

To that extent, and as an example of how far we've gone in the UK on our paranoia of injury, learning to drive in the UK has evolved from what was a common sense driving test, to a written exam, hazard awareness test, car maintenance as well as a tightly marked practical examination.

Addressing the need to produce safe drivers surely has to be balanced against the cost of producing them. It is already an expensive exercise to learn to drive. Those doing so are also young, often not earning and are most likely the people least likely to be able to afford lessons.

Down under, Australia has a far more typically pragmatic approach to driver safety. Rather than making new learner drivers spend a fortune (it's still expensive mind) on uneeded testing, they are forced to highlight to other road users that they are inexperienced drivers by having to display bright green P plates on their vehicle for two years from passing their test. The costs of which a couple of dollars. The P stands for provisional - only experienced drivers are deemed, quite rightly, as having the privilege of holding a full license.

If it was the case that the UK had a sparkling safety record on the roads (compared to other EU countries we are low on the safety record despite the new test regime) then there may be an argument for the costs of all those additional parts to the driving test. The fact of the matter is the HSE and DVLA have systematically put in place systems and procedures which, whilst creating marginal improvements in safety, have generated themselves millions of pounds. Call me cynical but it smells of another stealth tax rather than a concerned effort to make driving safer.

Most drivers will agree that the only way to becoming a better driver is experience. Accidents will always happen and whilst unfortunate, is part of life. We are never going to eradicate this so let's cut out these needless costs.