The genesis for this report is the link between the formal education and training of young drivers and their licensing. The first of these systems has endeavoured to teach the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed for safe driving; the latter has endeavoured to ensure that this skill set has been acquired. A controversial issue for decades, the relationship between education/training and licensing has recently become the subject of renewed debate, primarily as a result of a relatively new system of licensing, called graduated licensing, which involves a phased entry into full driving privileges. In some of the jurisdictions that have introduced graduated licensing, education/training has been given a very prominent and significant role - its completion reduces the length of time the young driver must comply with the restrictions imposed by the graduated licensing system. Implicit in this "time discount" is the assumption that the education/training provides safety benefits equivalent to those that would have accrued from gaining experience under the restrictions imposed by the graduated licensing system. This is an important assumption that should be carefully evaluated before it becomes an automatic feature of new laws. Assessing the evidence available today was, in part, the impetus for this report. Given that there is a precedent for the practice of incorporating education/training into a graduated licensing system, it is likely that many other jurisdictions will consider such a feature when adopting this new licensing system. Accordingly, it is timely to examine the justification for such a practice. This is the primary purpose of the present report. However, an examination of the role that driver education/training might play in a graduated licensing system requires, as a precursor, an evaluation of the benefits of formal instruction, per se. Accordingly, this report begins with a review of the historical and contemporary empirical evidence on the effectiveness of driver education/training before it considers the role that driver education/training can or should play in a graduated licensing system. The report first examines the effectiveness of traditional driver education, motorcycle rider education and advanced training courses in reducing the collision involvement of new drivers. Empirical literature from around the world is reviewed. This review takes the position that the principal goal of driver instruction is to produce "safer" drivers, defined in terms of collision involvement - i.e., drivers exposed to formal instruction should have lower crash rates than those who do not receive such instruction. This perspective is certainly consistent with the stated objectives of driver education and training as well as with the support it has received. (Author/publisher)
Abstract