Government stance is miles and miles away

11:16am Thursday 8th May 2008

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It's only a consultation document, but the government appears to be turning its back on the kind of meaningful reforms needed to save young lives.

Yes, there are some positive proposals to improve driver learning but Ruth Kelly looks like she is not at all won over by the principle of graduated licensing.

And crucially, the optimism that ministers would lay down a specified number of learner hours for young drivers, and thus effectively raise the driving age to 18, seems to have been misplaced.

Under this newspaper's proposals, which were presented to Mrs Kelly atWestminster just a few weeks ago, there would be various stages beforeacquiring full driving rights. Our proposals, which have won support from many quarters including senior police officers, largely fall in line with the recommendations of the transport select committee.

Under the Wasted Lives campaign aims, restrictions would be lifted as modules are passed and these restrictions included constraints on engine size and the carrying of passengers. Figures show that the young driveraccident statistics multiply many times over for each passenger carried in a car driven by a person under 25.

Yet the government seems to be ducking the passengers issue entirely.

In fact it appears to be ducking MOST of the more difficult proposals put forward by campaigners, and it's hard at this stage not to speculate that in avoiding some of the more challenging reforms it is running scared of possible negative fallout from young voters and from chief police officers who don't want another bucket-load of enforcement work.

Many of the government's reasons for disliking graduated licensing are spurious and weak. As for the question of enforcement they should be listening far more carefully to leading police officers who believe that many of the Wasted Lives aims are clearly 'do-able' and that many would, in any event, be self-enforcing.

For Terry and Ann Hannon, who lost their son Matthew in a crash as he raced a friend, the government response appears to fall very short, leaving Mr Hannon in his own words "gobsmacked".

It's hugely disappointing that the protests of bereaved families like the Hannons, and that the outstanding graduated schemes achieved in many parts of the world have been downplayed by the Transport Department.

And it's baffling that many of the compelling arguments put together by the transport select committee, led by the late and inspirational Gwyneth Dunwoody, seem to have been rejected.

As for the Lancashire Telegraph, our campaign goes on.

We acknowledge that Ruth Kelly is taking steps to make some improvements but it's nowhere near enough.

Yesterday's document outlines the government's position and we are now entering the official consultation period. So let's make our voices heard in the coming weeks.

The road death and accident statistics among young drivers are truly appalling. The fight must go on to cut this terrible toll.