What is the provisional licence and how effective is it?

Answer

In the first five years after acquisition of a first driving licence, in whatever category, a simple demerit point system applies.  This is called provisional licencing. After two serious traffic violations, for which the provisional licence holder has been stopped, an investigation into his driving skills will follow. Effectiveness of provisional licencing seems limited and research has shown no deterring effect on novice drivers (general preventive effect) [45] [46].

The Netherlands have had provisional licencing since 2002. After its introduction, the number of serious crashes in the young driver group (a lot of whom have a provisional licence) has not decreased to a greater extent than the number in the slightly older group (of whom only a small percentage have a provisional licence). Nor was an effect demonstrated on the behaviour of novice drivers with a first demerit point (specific preventive effect) [45]. A supposedly important reason for the lack of effectivity might be that, in the Netherlands, only serious violations ascertained after stopping are registered. The probability of detection of this kind of violation is very low [47]. In addition quite a few novice drivers appear to be unaware of the (conditions of) provisional licencing, which lowers the preventive effect. Neither do all police stops result in a licence demerit point because of input ‘leakage’ in the procedures of police, public prosecution (CVOM in Dutch) and the Dutch Driving Test Organisation (CBR in Dutch) [46].

Since 2006, a reduced alcohol limit of 0,2 g/l has applied to novice drivers. Data on the 4-year periods before and after introduction of the reduced limit (between 2002 and 2010) show that alcohol consumption of young drivers did not decrease to a higher extent than that of older drivers [48]. Therefore, this measure did again not result in a positive effect on road safety; possibly once more because of the low detection probability.

Part of fact sheet

Driver training and driving tests

In the Netherlands, licence acquisition courses for category B (passenger cars) are concluded by a theoretical and a practical test.

Would you like to cite this fact sheet?