In 1993 and 1994 the age limits for driver training in Sweden and Norway were reduced to 16 years. The licensing age is 18. The main purpose of the reform was to stimulate learner drivers to get more driving experience under safe conditions before starting to drive on their own, in order to reduce the notoriously high crash risk among novice drivers. Changes in amount of training and post-licensing crash risk have been assessed in both countries, and the present study is a comparative analysis based on the previous assessments. The total amount of training increased more in Sweden than in Norway. This may probably be partly explained by a stronger tradition for private driver training in Sweden than in Norway. And as expected on the background of the larger increase in training, the decrease in post-licensing crash risk was also larger in Sweden. The Swedish evaluation showed that the risk of police-reported crashes during the first two years after licensing was 17 % lower after than before the reform, whereas the corresponding effect in Norway was only 2 % and not significant. Concerning the time course of the risk after licensing, there was a decrease by about 50 % during the first 8 – 10 months, and the shape of the month-by-month decrease was similar both before and after the reform. This sharp decrease demonstrates a dramatic effect of driving experience on safety, and a pertinent question is whether a similar reduction in risk could be attained by providing the same amount of training before licensing, and at a considerably lower cost in terms of accidents, due to the presence of the accompanying driver. The Norwegian and Swedish results indicate that the effect of accompanied pre-licence driver training on subsequent accident risk may be comparable to the effect of a corresponding amount of post-license autonomous driving. (Author/publisher)
Abstract