Why life might be about to get harder for new drivers

29th Jul, 2024

Owning and driving a car has never been particularly cheap per se, but in recent years things have only been getting more expensive – the price of fuel has risen, insurance prices are going up, and even the cars themselves are getting more expensive. That’s not been great news for everyone, but it’s about to be especially hard on learner drivers, who already have to deal with particularly high insurance premiums.

Now, we’ve recently had a change in government here in the UK, and here at Scrap Car Network we’ve already recently talked about some of the new rules the government is planning on bringing in. Some new changes will have an especially significant effect on learner drivers and new drivers in the coming years – so if you’re looking at getting on the roads for the first time yourself, here are some of the biggest changes it’s worth getting yourself up to speed on!

Graduated Driving Licences

This is without question one of the biggest upcoming changes – it’s not yet law but it’s been gaining a lot of momentum this year.

In case you need a quick refresher, a graduated driving licence scheme is essentially a phased approach to licensing, in which new drivers progress through stages with increasing privileges and responsibilities. It typically includes provisional licences with restrictions and a full licence obtained after meeting certain criteria and gaining experience.

Nearly 30,000 accidents happened on UK roads in 2022, and around a fifth of these involved a young driver. Proponents of the idea have been citing successful schemes in other countries such as New Zealand, where a graduated driving licence scheme resulted in 23 percent drop in crash injuries for 15–19-year-olds

Canada’s scheme was arguably even more successful – after it introduced a minimum learning period and restrictions on night driving, it saw a 42 percent drop in crashes involving drivers aged 20–24.

The details of the UK’s own scheme haven’t been finalised yet, but some of the possible restrictions may include a zero-alcohol limit, and controls over the number of young passengers they are allowed to carry. It’s also possible that a period of restriction – approximately six months – could also be put on learner drivers, during which they would not be able to apply to take a driving test. (More on that in a moment though.)

We’re not yet quite there, but the idea has already received cross-party support and industry support. Most recently, the AA called on all parties to accept it, so it looks like there’s a good chance of it becoming law relatively soon.

Potential charges for successive driving test fails

This one is relatively recent, and hasn’t quite got the support that the Graduated Licence scheme has just yet. It’s been put forward by the RAC Foundation, a UK transport research organisation. Essentially, the proposed idea involves levying extra charges for learner drivers who fail their test multiple times.

This suggestion arose due to the significant backlog of driving tests caused by various factors, including the pandemic and subsequent strikes. As a direct result, countless drivers are waiting months on end to take their test. That backlog is arguably being worsened by some drivers taking their test an excessive number of times, leading to concerns that some are retaking them before they’re adequately prepared – essentially leading to wasted time and avoidable congestion of the system.

As noted by RAW2K, the aim of introducing additional fees for frequent fails is to help reduce the backlog by encouraging learners to wait until they’re ready to pass. RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding suggested Labour should consider introducing rebates for those who pass on their first attempt and additional fees for those with several failures. He mentioned that some learners “keep throwing themselves back into tests without being properly prepared”.

Obviously, the intention isn’t to inconvenience young drivers for no reason – it’s to help reduce the backlog. Unfortunately, this might mean that the process of learning could become more expensive in the short term.

…but insurance may start to get cheaper

It’s not all bad news! It’s worth pointing out that the new Transport Secretary has promised to tackle the soaring cost of insurance, which is particularly tricky for younger drivers – they’re generally deemed to be higher ‘risk’ than typically older and more experienced drivers, so they have to deal with particularly high insurance premiums as a result.

Labour’s new Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, has said that there’s been a £219 increase in the average premium over the past two years, and called for more transparency from the industry regarding the cause of these rises.

There still haven’t been any concrete new policy announcements around that just yet, but it’s still some welcome good news for learner drivers. We’ll just have to see how that pans out!

Whatever ends up becoming law though, you can always count on one thing – here at Scrap Car Network, we’ll always stay committed to helping you get the very best price for your scrap car.

First cars don’t always tend to come into your life in top shape, so whenever yours finally gives up the ghost, we’ve made sure everything is as simple as possible. All you need to do is enter your car reg and postcode into the fields on our site, and we’ll get you an instant online quote before you can say cash for cars.