Young Drivers
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S3M-2650, in the name of Alison McInnes, on "Safe drivers are made, not born". The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the publication of the Young drivers - where and when they are unsafe report by the IAM motoring trust; notes with dismay the number of young people killed and seriously injured on Scotland's roads in the last five years, including nearly 100 people aged 17 to 25 in the Grampian area alone; further notes the 10 key recommendations of the IAM report, and believes that schools, young people, road agencies and local and national authorities should work together in order to introduce these measures and improve road safety for all our young drivers.
I am pleased that my motion has been selected for debate this evening, and I thank all those who have already supported it.
Sadly, everyone in the chamber will know of constituents whose families have been devastated by the loss of a young person in a car accident. The number of young people who are killed or seriously injured on our roads is shocking. The stark accident statistics, of course, hide the real and lasting impact that such a loss has on family and friends.
The overall rates of accidents are coming down, with the number of road deaths in Britain below 3,000 in 2007, making our roads among the safest in the world. However, that success is overshadowed by the fact that young drivers are not getting any safer. Road crashes are the single biggest killer of 15 to 24-year-olds in industrial countries. In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concluded that
"the high crash fatality and injury rates of young, male novice drivers represent a major public health issue."
The research that was done by Jean Hopkin for the Institute of Advanced Motorists is comprehensive and makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of where and when young drivers are unsafe. She analysed almost 250,000 crashes in which people were killed or seriously injured between 2000 and 2006. Her work is published in the report "Safe drivers are made, not born", which contains practical recommendations for local authorities and Government to implement. There is a 10-point package of actions to make younger drivers safer, which includes practical and effective steps that could be taken now to reduce the number of fatalities.
The debate is set against the background of Department for Transport proposals to make changes to the driving test. The consultation has closed and we expect to see the Westminster Government's proposals in the spring. We also await the publication of the Scottish Government's road safety strategy. The consultation on that closed in April, with a stated intention that the final document would be published in the autumn. However, we are still waiting for it. Perhaps in responding to the debate, the minister will advise us when that will be published.
I am sure that the Governments here and in Westminster are actively considering road safety, but we can afford to wait no longer. Recommendations in the Institute of Advanced Motorists action plan can be implemented now by the Scottish Government and I hope that there is cross-party agreement that that should happen.
For example, the institute suggests encouraging more understanding of driving in a wider range of road conditions in which novice drivers are most at risk, such as driving at night, in poor visibility and on rural roads. It suggests that we prepare learner drivers better for driving solo or with passengers by making them more aware of where and when they are likely to crash. The institute recommends integrating road safety education into the core school curriculum subjects so that young people develop a self-taught awareness of the risks and responsibilities of using roads as drivers, riders and passengers. It also recommends that we guide parents and carers to help children to become safer drivers through additional supervised driving practice in the family car.
I will focus on where young people are likely to crash; I am sure that other members will pick up on other recommendations in the report. The message that young drivers are at particular risk when driving on rural roads has come through loud and clear not only from the research but—sadly—from the coverage in my daily newspaper, The Press and Journal, which I commend for its campaigning stance on road safety. It has in the past convened a road safety summit and most recently offered a young driver of the year award.
The research found that young drivers
"tend to over-estimate their driving ability and under-estimate the demands of the driving task, driving too close to the point where they are likely to lose control of the vehicle".
I note that that trait is
"far less prevalent in young women drivers".
On rural roads, the most common accident to involve young males is a single-vehicle crash in which the car leaves the road. More than a third of young drivers in killed or serious injury crashes skid or overturn. The research suggests that speed, judgment and poor vehicle control skills are particular issues. That is not surprising when we consider that most people learn to drive in towns and cities. Little, if any, time is spent on rural roads, yet we know that rural driving is some of the most demanding driving, especially when it is coupled with other hazards, such as bad weather or poor visibility.
In the light of those findings, we urgently need to direct our efforts to working with young male novice drivers to increase their understanding and experience of rural road driving. Of course, good examples of road safety initiatives exist throughout the country. In my region, Aberdeenshire Council supports the pass plus young drivers scheme by contributing a £45 grant, and a further £100 contribution to the cost is available from community safety groups. The uptake of those grants has been quite good.
Grampian Police runs its driving ambition scheme for sixth-year pupils in all Aberdeenshire schools and holds weekend events for those who leave school before sixth year. The community safety campaign safe drive stay alive is delivered throughout Grampian and reaches about 5,000 fifth-year pupils every year. Those events are open to college students and to any youngsters who leave school before fifth year.
I would like those local initiatives to be backed by a concerted and sustained national effort. I stress that I do not wish to demonise young drivers. I agree with Ms Hopkin's conclusion that
"While young drivers are a high risk group in themselves, most young drivers are not deliberately unsafe".
That is precisely why driver training and more driving practice before solo driving are really important. We let down our young people by not ensuring that they are equipped to deal with the demands of rural driving. Preparing our young people to be safer drivers must be our number 1 road safety priority. It would be a great investment. I would like the Government to work closely with schools, young people, their parents and carers, local authorities and driving instructors to develop a programme of continuing driver education. Passing the driving test should be just the start of a process, not the end. Safe drivers are made, not born.
I congratulate Alison McInnes on securing the debate. The topic is important to far too many families who are devastated by the loss of a loved one, as she said, and to those who are seriously injured in such accidents, whose consequences might live with a family for ever.
As Alison McInnes said, the road safety statistics for young drivers are worsening—16 per cent more people in the 16-to-19 age group are killed now than were killed 15 years ago—despite a general increase in road safety. Road accidents and fatalities have gone down, and that has to be seen against a huge increase in vehicle journeys. In 1965, there were five fatalities per 100 million km; that is now down to one fatality per 100 million km. That is an immense improvement.
On reading the IAM report when it was published in the summer, I was reminded of learning to drive in the countryside in my youth. Again, the thought struck me that there but for the grace of God go I. The pattern of driving that is described in the report continues to be repeated, particularly by young people who drive on our rural roads.
It is important to remember not to demonise all young drivers, just as we must remember not to demonise all young people when we debate antisocial behaviour. Although we all notice the young person who drives noisily down the high street on a Friday night, we do not notice the young person who drives quietly down a side road on a Friday afternoon. We must remember that in debating the issue.
The IAM report shows the correlation between inexperience at any age and road accidents. It is not only young inexperienced drivers who cause accidents; there is the same problem with old inexperienced drivers. The research also shows that far too many drivers expect to learn about real driving, as they describe it, after they pass the test. Of course, some of them learn the hard way, and others learn it too late.
We have to do two things: reduce the level of inexperience at the time of taking the test and reduce the time that it takes to gain more experience after passing the test. One of the report's interesting recommendations is to do with the insurance companies. The idea that the premium on someone's insurance is increased when they seek to add their son or daughter to their policy while they are teaching them to drive, despite all the statistics showing that there is no increase in danger, is ludicrous. We should lobby the insurance industry on that.
As the report rightly says, more restrictions are not the way to go. There is evidence to show that the R-plate that is used in Northern Ireland, under which recently qualified drivers are restricted to 45 miles an hour, is largely flouted. We already have half a million unlicensed drivers in the United Kingdom and one in 20 drivers has no insurance. Thinking that we can successfully enforce further restrictions is not the way to go. As I said, the emphasis should be on more training before taking the test and more skill acquiring after passing it.
Of course, we should try to get over the point—which we have not yet succeeded in doing—that, just as with school and university exams, the point of a driving test is not just to learn enough tricks to pass it; it is to become a good driver. That is another lesson that we need to get across to everyone who is involved in this important topic.
I join others in congratulating Alison McInnes on getting this topic on to the agenda for a members' business debate.
During the first session of the Parliament, I became involved with some of my constituents in trying to promote post-test experience. As Alasdair Morgan has just said, post-test experience is vital. The insurance industry will reduce premiums if people complete a post-test learning programme. Indeed, Fife Council promoted such a system jointly with insurance companies.
We need to have a system whereby the Government works with local authorities to try to promote post-test additional experience, including in night driving, motorway driving and driving on rural roads. Those are the situations that are important for young drivers who have just passed the test, given that most single-car, run-off accidents involve young people. The systems are in place to do that, but they are not being promoted universally. That needs to happen.
No member has yet mentioned the green L-plate, which may be a useful thing to promote, albeit not as a measure of compulsion. I give cars that display red L-plates a slightly wider berth than normal, for my sake as well as that of the learner driver. Perhaps greater use of green L-plates should be promoted.
The United Kingdom Government is consulting on driving and alcohol levels. The matter is reserved but, nevertheless, in his discussions with our colleagues in the UK Government, the minister could promote the adoption of a system whereby drivers who are under 21 have to have a zero alcohol level. There is an evidential base for measures to tackle the combination of alcohol and inexperience in driving, unlike some of the other proposals for under-21s that the Parliament has rejected. It is recognised that people under 21 are less tolerant of alcohol. In light of that clear evidence and the fact that young people have less experience of driving, we need to support the large majority of youngsters who are much better than my generation at not drinking and driving at all.
Another issue is that young people tend to purchase and drive older cars, with much lower national car assessment programme scores. That is not good, but there is little that we can do about it.
My final point relates to the Scottish driving assessment service at the south-east mobility and rehabilitation technology services centre at the Astley Ainslie hospital. As a doctor, I used that service extensively for patients who were suffering from an illness that might affect their driving. The majority of people whom we referred were older people. We were trying to establish whether their impairment was such that they could no longer drive, and the centre provided them with a good assessment and support. However, there are two peaks in referrals—one for people between 16 and 25, and another for much older people. People aged 16 to 25 who have a sensory or other impairment that requires them to be assessed properly before they start driving are an important group. Currently, the waiting time for assessments is six months, as the centre is underfunded. I encourage the minister to undertake in his response to talk to the health ministers about ensuring that the service, which is promoted by both the national health service and the Scottish Government's transport directorate and is essential to the safety of patients and the public, is properly funded, to allow assessments to take place in a timely fashion.
I thank Alison McInnes for bringing the IAM report to the attention of Parliament and for securing today's debate.
I have a degree of experience of the problems that are associated with young and inexperienced drivers. I come from an extremely rural area—the kind of area where everyone seeks to get a driving licence as soon as they are 17, so that they may become mobile in a way that they were not previously. I had that experience, which was repeated by members of my family when they reached the required age. Because I live on a farm, and my son was the person in his peer group with a tractor, he got the job of bringing back wreckage from the roadside—he had a shed behind which he could hide it. Thankfully, none of his friends was killed or seriously injured in any of the accidents, but the experience made clear to me how many accidents involving young and inexperienced drivers take place. It also gave me strong opinions on the matter. Although I agree with most of what has been said already, I hope to make one or two additional points.
The first relates to young girls who, as newly qualified drivers, may be less enthusiastic and slightly more timid than others. Friends of my daughter have told me that they have experienced intimidation on the roads. People who should know better victimise inexperienced drivers who are more timid in nature and cause them difficulty. We should not be prepared to put up with that.
It appears that we have a particular problem in the north-east. I may be wrong, but I read the north-east papers which, as we heard earlier, always contain reports of deaths and injuries associated with young and inexperienced drivers. Many accidents are caused by the frustration that arises on roads where slow-moving traffic is a problem, as difficulty in overtaking can provoke people into taking action that they should not take. I welcome the news that there will be further investment in some single-carriageway roads in the north-east—I hope that that will deliver a change.
I was not going to mention alcohol, but I heard it mentioned in an earlier speech, and I agree that we should reduce the limit for everyone. I know that there are difficulties with measuring consumption and securing a prosecution because it is necessary to have a line in the sand over which we can prove that the person has stepped, but the technology that is now available to us makes it possible to enforce a much lower limit than we have at present. We should move towards doing that.
I do not want to discourage young people from driving. I want them to take driving seriously. One problem that we have is that it is difficult to work out who is likely to be vastly overconfident and take their new driving licence, jump into a car and go off and do something stupid. It is an almost impossible task to select those people, because they are in fact the best drivers who go through the instruction and testing process. They are the most likely to pass their driving test at the first attempt—and then they go off and become involved in a serious accident.
We must do more in schools. It is my personal view and not my party's, but I have suggested that the right thing to do is not to increase to 18 the age at which someone can hold a licence but to permit 16 and 17-year-olds to drive while accompanied and under instruction. In that way, we can guarantee that they have a year of instruction before they pass their test. In addition, most pupils in Scotland would spend that year at school, and we could use the opportunity that schools provide to teach them proper road manners and ensure that they understand the risks. We could also perhaps identify the one or two individuals who might go out and do something stupid.
I, too, congratulate Alison McInnes on bringing this important matter to the chamber for debate. It is interesting to note that half of the MSPs who are in the chamber this evening represent Aberdeenshire, where we have a real problem with accidents on rural roads. I know that from personal experience.
The Institute of Advanced Motorists report is excellent; it is comprehensive and well balanced, and it points out ways in which to address the problem of serious crashes on our rural roads, particularly in Aberdeenshire. I will highlight three or four of its recommendations.
I appreciate the tone that members have taken in the debate—measured and positive, just like the report. We recognise that the majority of young people have the right attitude to driving and that banning them from driving at night or carrying passengers would be unfair to them and would not influence the irresponsible minority.
I agree with Alasdair Morgan that we should be talking not about more restrictions on individuals but about training and enhancing people's experience. That is what the report recommends. It states that we need to introduce a
"greater focus on rural road driving",
which is
"the greatest risk that new drivers face".
It also states that we need to
"Persuade the insurance industry to set realistic family car premiums".
I am glad that the IAM mentions new drivers, because our focus should be not young drivers but new and inexperienced drivers.
Alex Johnstone talked about teaching young people in schools. The report states that we should
"Teach in core school curriculum subjects the risks young people will face as drivers, riders and passengers".
I agree. Rather than increase the age at which people can drive, we should consider lowering it so that people get a year of experience and tuition. I think that that is a good suggestion, but I have a problem with the recommendation that we
"Target police enforcement to find and take off the roads the reckless minority of young, mainly male, drivers"—
I would prefer it to say "the reckless minority of drivers." There are enough of them, frankly. We see them all the time, never mind on a Friday night. Racing drivers disrupt people in villages and communities throughout Aberdeenshire, and the police could and should target them to take them off the road.
On the basis of personal experience, I take issue with something Richard Simpson said. He proposed a zero alcohol rule for under-21s. As Alex Johnstone said, we should forget about age; if we are to have such a rule, it should be applied across the board.
I have two sons, aged 18 and 21. As we live in a very rural area, three and a half miles from the nearest bus stop, they need access to vehicles. Both took the driving test when they were 17, one in the very rural Deeside community of Ballater, the other in the city of Aberdeen. I heard on the grapevine that taking the driving test in rural Ballater is not really the same as taking the test in Aberdeen, but I would far rather that they had both taken the test in Ballater, given that they drive on those roads all the time. Knowing how to drive in the city can come with experience.
Fortunately, my boys are not among the 23 per cent of people who, in their first year of driving, crash their car. That has nothing to do with age; it is about inexperience. In that respect, the IAM report contains many good points: this is not about restricting driving but about education and ensuring that drivers have more experience before we let them on to the road. My plea is that we focus not on all young drivers but on irresponsible drivers.
I, too, congratulate Alison McInnes on securing this debate on an extremely important issue.
In my time as a north-east MSP, I have discovered that road accidents are a major problem in the area. Sadly, the north-east has the unwanted reputation of having some of the most dangerous stretches of road not only in Scotland but in Europe, although I point out that accidents are usually caused not by the roads but by inexperienced drivers not driving according to road conditions.
I am sorry to say that, since the end of October, when Alison Mclnnes lodged her motion, we have seen the tragic death of two more young men on the A947. This latest accident brings to 23 the toll of people killed since 2003 in road accidents within an eight-mile radius of Turriff. That figure is quite unacceptable, and I am sure that everyone in the chamber will want to extend their sincere condolences to the families of Edward Stalker and Derek Dawson.
What can we do? How can we change driving habits to address the unacceptable loss of young lives on our roads? I welcome the publication of the IAM's "Young drivers—where and when they are unsafe" report and support many of its proposals for improving road safety for all our young drivers.
I also fully endorse Alison McInnes's call for schools, young people, road agencies and local and national authorities to work together. As she said, that work is already under way in Grampian. I praise the efforts of partners such as Grampian Police, which, along with the fire and rescue service and other services in the area, has already developed programmes to engage actively with our young people in schools and colleges in the north-east.
Anyone who has been involved with the safe drive stay alive project that Alison McInnes referred to cannot have failed to be moved by its content and impact. I clearly remember the physical impact on the teenage audience of a very hard-hitting and explicit presentation on the effects of serious road traffic accidents on victims, those who cause accidents and the families who are left to cope with the resultant disabilities or the loss of their loved ones. The expressions on the faces of the pupils as they left the Beach Ballroom, only to be faced with the mangled wreck of a car involved in a fatal accident, showed that the message had got home. Perhaps that presentation should be made more widely available to get the message across to a wider spread of young drivers.
The Government needs to act to improve safety on roads in the north-east and I am pleased that ministers are taking the matter very seriously. Anyone who has driven on the A96 or the A947 will be aware of the long stretches of straight road that can lull drivers into a false sense of security and encourage excessive speed. We must pursue all means of making drivers aware of the risks by, for example, introducing warning signs and non-skid road surfaces.
Scottish Conservatives have long advocated the establishment by the Scottish Government of a special accident black spot fund to target the most dangerous stretches of our roads and junctions with safety improvements. Sadly, the previous Executive rejected the idea, although I point out that the model has worked successfully in other European countries and ensures that road safety does not drop down the list of spending priorities.
A number of policies are worthy of support, including the Scottish Government's new road safety campaign, which seeks to extend the pass plus scheme to support Scotland's young drivers. There are many others, as we have heard today. In a letter that he sent me this week, the First Minister pointed out that the Scottish Government is developing a 10-year road safety strategy for Scotland, which will be published early next year. I look forward to seeing the detail of that, because I understand that it will focus on measures to improve the safety of young drivers.
I hope that when the minister responds to the debate he will consider the potential of our black spot fund proposal and the promotion and development of a route accident reduction plan for Scotland's national trunk road network.
This evening's debate has given us the opportunity to recognise the importance of the work that is needed to improve road safety for all our young drivers. The tragic loss of so many young lives on Scotland's roads is a major issue and addressing it has to be a high priority for the Parliament and the Government.
I congratulate Alison McInnes on securing the debate. I count myself as an honorary north-east driver, given that my experience of the north-east stretches back 50 years. The little roads around Aberdeen are not by any stretch of the imagination suitable for high-speed driving.
I spent my honeymoon on Jersey, where speed limits are as low as 15mph on the most dangerous roads. Above all, what young drivers need to be taught is patience and consideration for others. That culture on the roads needs to be encouraged. The motor car should be seen as an instrument to get safely from A to B. That is what the car is for; it is not for racing. Of course, it is not going to be terribly easy to develop that culture in the face of programmes such as "Top Gear", on which one sees people drooling over cars with 3, 4, 5 or 6 litre engines and which deliberately encourages a culture in which the car—
Robin Harper has hit on an important issue. There is a 60mph speed limit on many roads in rural Aberdeenshire but many youngsters have said to me, "Wait a minute—the speed limit's 60mph, so I can drive at 60mph." We need something that tells people that the fact that the speed limit is 60mph does not necessarily mean that they should drive at 60mph.
Indeed. Mike Rumbles has made one of the points that I was going to make. If one just clips another car while both are travelling at 60mph on a tight rural road, there is a combined collision speed of 120mph. Nobody would drive a car at anything like that speed.
I remember when the 50mph speed limit was introduced in 1975—I think it was in 1975, during the oil crisis.
It was 1974.
I drove down to London that year and took exactly the same time as I had taken the previous year, when I drove the 400 miles at the full speed limit of 60mph or 70mph whenever I could. Instead of being absolutely tired out, I was relaxed and I had an evening out. Driving faster, particularly on rural roads—given all the braking and accelerating that we have to do—is bad for the car, bad for one's heart and it does not get us to our destination much quicker than does driving sedately at 50mph.
Another thing that I have noticed is the amount of tailgating on rural roads. Alex Johnstone talked about drivers intimidating other drivers by doing that, which is most unhelpful. He also made a good point about allowing 16-year-olds to drive with their parents accompanying them, which would mean that they had a whole year of someone instilling in them the culture of driving carefully. Once people are over 25, they begin to calm down behind the wheel anyway, although I have noticed that some people's characters change completely when they get behind the wheel of a car; they call all sorts of things down on every other driver on the road and believe that they are the only sensible person there.
Dr Richard Simpson knows that it is very difficult to get a level of absolute zero alcohol in the blood. If we reduced the maximum level to 5mg or 10mg, that would probably be sensible in discouraging people from drinking at all before they drive. As has been pointed out many times, there is no safe level.
I thank Alison McInnes very much for securing the debate.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to discuss this extremely important issue, and I thank Alison McInnes for lodging the motion, which has enabled us to do just that.
Young driver safety is a huge concern for us all and for the Scottish Government. It is a major concern for the great many people in Scotland who have seen young people die on our roads. One in four drivers or riders who were killed or seriously injured on our roads in 2007 was aged between 17 and 25. One in five new drivers is likely to be involved in an accident within one year of passing their test.
The recently published Scottish road accident statistics show that, in general, casualty numbers in Scotland are moving in the right direction, as I think Alasdair Morgan suggested, with 45 per cent fewer deaths and serious injuries in 2007 than there were in the mid-1990s. However, every road death is one too many, especially for the families involved. I am sure that we all know many families who have lost children or young adults in such circumstances. We are all determined to do everything that a Government and its agencies can do to prevent such tragedies.
I welcome the information and advice that has been provided in the report from the Institute of Advanced Motorists, which I read earlier this year. The Scottish Government is developing a 10-year road safety strategy, which will be published early next year. To respond directly to Alison McInnes, it was not published earlier because the consultation did not successfully elicit the views of young drivers. Those views are at the core of the issue, so we wanted to ensure that we got some analysis data about young people's opinions. We therefore felt it important to convene focus groups to gain better insight and understanding, which could be used to set actions for our strategy. The report on the focus group discussions will be published on 12 December.
Neil Greig, the head of the IAM Motoring Trust, sits on the panel of experts that was set up by Stewart Stevenson to advise on measures that can be expected to be most effective in improving road safety in Scotland over the next 10 years. Earlier this year, we consulted the public and stakeholders and sought views on what our strategy should cover. More than half the responses highlighted young drivers as the key road safety issue.
Members have made a number of useful and wide-ranging speeches. Alasdair Morgan pointed out that more regulation or laws will not necessarily reduce the number of fatalities, and that many existing laws—on driving without a licence, for example—are breached by a huge number of people. It is right that the whole power of the law should be brought down heavily on people who commit such serious road offences.
Dr Richard Simpson made a large number of useful points, for example about the value of post-test experience, green L-plates and alcohol levels. He advocated a zero-limit approach. I should make it clear that the Scottish Government is concerned about the matter, and we welcome the contributions of the British Medical Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland on it. Lowering the limit and the introduction of random breath testing are options that should certainly be considered.
Does the minister accept that the problem with having a zero-limit approach concerns next-day driving? It is absolutely right to say that people should not drive if they have been drinking but, as Robin Harper mentioned, there is an issue around retention of alcohol in the bloodstream.
Mike Rumbles raises a serious issue. The Scottish Government has advocated a reduction in the limit, but we have not advocated a zero approach. We think that a reduction would be appropriate, given that the law has not been reviewed for many decades.
Richard Simpson alluded to the problem of what happens when one loses the faculty of sight as time goes on. It is not very gallant of me to mention my mother at this point—I will be in trouble—but I recall that she took an unusual approach to road safety when she last bought a car. It was a sprightly sports car. She pursued the unusual road safety mechanism of having it blessed by the monks of Pluscarden, near Miltonduff where she lived. I suspect that that may not necessarily become Government policy.
Scottish Government research—"Rural Road Safety: Drivers and Driving"—will be published on 12 December, along with the report on young people's views as they were reported to focus groups. The study on rural road safety, which has been highlighted by many members—including Alex Johnstone and Nanette Milne, to name two—found that more than a quarter of drivers aged between 17 and 24 reported having had a near miss while driving on a rural road within the last twelve months. Many members have acknowledged that as new drivers ourselves we were perhaps not safe to be on the road—we did not have the experience and we lacked confidence. That was certainly my view.
The Scottish Government responded earlier in the year to a consultation by the Driving Standards Agency on changes to the driver training and testing regime. Our response urged that consideration be given to the incorporation of the pass plus scheme into the training and testing regime. Nanette Milne referred to that. We advocate that step and agree with the argument that she adduced. At the same time, we strongly believe that the training of future young drivers starts many years before they can apply for a provisional licence. Education should be provided at all stages, from pre-school right through secondary school.
Road Safety Scotland's crash magnets resource for senior pupils aims to encourage responsible attitudes to driving before young people get behind the wheel. Its publicity campaigns aim to raise awareness among young people of their vulnerability on the roads—they are not immortal, they are not invisible and they are perhaps not always worldly wise. Patience is a virtue that they should learn from Robin Harper.
A great deal of good work is being done. The innovative campaign that used the Xbox gaming system has just won a Prince Michael of Kent award for innovation and excellence in road safety. Such initiatives are making a significant contribution and we are developing the approach. The Scottish Qualifications Authority is working to develop a pre-driver award that focuses on safe and responsible road use. The award will be available at eight centres in Scotland in January 2009 and there will be a more general roll-out in 2010.
The role of parents should not be overlooked. A guide for parents is available. It covers the development of attitudes that influence later driving behaviour, the driving test, the value of professional tuition, further training for new drivers, and further experience, particularly of different and more challenging road conditions, such as night driving on motorways, for new drivers. These are just a few of the initiatives that have been put in place.
I pay tribute to the work that many of our emergency services workers—in particular police and firefighters—do in their education role. I also express my personal concern about the toll that it must take on our emergency service workers to attend fatalities week in, week out and to have to deal with the carnage at the scene and with the survivors. That must be a demanding and difficult task.
The debate has been very useful. We are indebted to Alison McInnes for introducing a debate of the utmost gravity, relevance and importance to our nation. Collectively—as a Parliament and as a nation—we cannot and will not tolerate the waste of young lives on our roads. The devastation that it causes is immeasurable, so we are determined to work with our partners across government and in the private sector to try our best to prevent these terrible tragedies.
Meeting closed at 17:49.