Meeting of the Parliament 25 March 2014
When the Government published Scotland’s road safety framework, one of the priorities that we set out concerned young drivers who are aged 17 to 25. Young people who are aged 17 to 25 make up 10 per cent of licence holders, yet they account for 23 per cent of the drivers who have been involved in injury road accidents in the past five years in Scotland.
I am delighted that a number of young people are in the public gallery and I hope that they can stay for as much of the debate as possible. As young people are a priority group, a substantial amount of our road safety resource in Transport Scotland, and Road Safety Scotland in particular, focuses on interventions for young and inexperienced drivers.
In 2007, we undertook a world first when Road Safety Scotland used Xbox Live to deliver drink-drive and then country road messages to young Scots who use that online gaming platform. My road safety team has told me that the second person to use that platform was Barack Obama in his first presidential campaign.
Although in recent years the casualty numbers for 17 to 25-year-olds have fallen slightly, they are still disproportionate to those for other age groups. That is a clear indication that other measures need to be considered. A number of members will have spoken directly to parents who have lost children in that age group, and will know how heartbreaking the death of a loved one is for them.
Today’s debate is the latest stage in a long process in which the Scottish Government has listened, gathered evidence and advocated an approach to road safety for young, inexperienced drivers that includes some form of graduated driver licensing. Crucially, that process includes debate with young people. It is frustrating that that is as far as we can go currently, as GDL is a reserved issue. Despite our repeated attempts to engage and encourage the United Kingdom Government to take action on the issue, we still do not even have the promised green paper that sets out the UK Government’s intentions. On 18 December 2013, Stephen Hammond announced via a written answer in the UK Parliament the postponement of the publication of that green paper, and we now understand that it has been postponed indefinitely. That announcement was met with widespread condemnation from the road safety community in the UK and was the subject of an early day motion that deplored the decision.
There is a long timeline of our constant intercession on the matter with the UK Government. It began with our response to the Driving Standards Agency’s consultation on learning to drive in 2008, in which we indicated our broad support for GDL. Since then, I have written several times to the UK Government, including in my latest letter in January this year, which I have tabled. That letter urged the UK Government to either take action or consider the powers that the Scottish Government would require to take action in Scotland.
The Scottish Parliament previously debated young driver safety on 7 September 2011 and supported the view that, if a graduated driver licensing scheme was introduced in Scotland, up to 19 lives per year could be saved.