I searched the net and some of it I already knew as a driving instructor, so I quote from experience as a professional driver trainer. The extract I wrote about more males having accidents than females is a statistic I knew about and I checked it with the net. You can get a special insurance for ladies which is cheaper, I think its called Lady Drive or something like that. I used to recommend it to my female students.
Try this link for my information
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article2204067.eceOf course there is the Pass Plus course for all newly qualified drivers. The trouble is they dont take advantage of the extra tuition for motorway driving after they pass their test. I used to be a Grade 6 instructor which is the highest grade in the UK instructor grading system. I kept this qualification for 12 years before retiring. Its is hard to get a grade 6 as you have to be almost perfect in your check test to attain this grade. I used to be in the top 500 lady instructors in the UK, but times have changed so don't quote me on this any more!! I retired 5 years ago after 25 years of teaching the learners and the instructors.
Maybe you can just use some of my text and use it as an example of a "grown up speech" something which sounds positive. There seemed quite a bit of negativisms in your text and I tried to use encouraging language rather than the negative.
I wish you every success and if I can help further I would be happy to do so. The following are just stories from my own experience.
My own experience of this is that I would like to raise the miniumum age for driving to 18. I have had two of my students who were killed in an accident at age 17 and they weren't even driving the car!! Their mates were driving and they were not my students. This is so sad as one of my students had only passed his test a week before. I went to see his parents and on that day his new licence had just arrived, it was so sad. It wasnt his fault he lost his life. His friend had lessons with his parents who weren't prepared to pay for proper tuition. My student was such a caring lad, but like all learners once they left my care, I had no control over any bad habits my students might have developed, I just had to make sure they got the attitudes needed for defensive driving skills on today's roads
The older you are when you learn to drive, preferably between 21 and 30 the more stable attitude is developed on the road, so it seems. When I was teaching driving all the learner wanted was cheap lessons, which didn't necessarily get them through their test!! They ended up paying more and often those who got practice with parents developed the parents not so good habits. Therefore it took me, as an instructor, longer to teach them how to undo those habits. Both my kids have learned to drive with me at aged 21 and both passed their test first time. They are both very stable drivers having learned defensive skills, which, to me, proves it does work.
I want learners to spend as long as possible learning to drive, I feel it is far better than having cheap lessons and trying to simply pass the test. We have to develop defensive driving skills and perception skills before going on to the road. This definitely calls for safer driving. Taking longer and starting when a little older isnt such a bad thing. I know the UK can be a "nanny state" but we do have a very good record for road safety. Being a "nanny" on this occasion is probably one of the good things.
I could talk about this all day but I wanted to keep the idea you had by not altering your argument to keep the minimum age for driving. Maybe I can change your mind when you read the link I provided about LOL!!
All the best to you
Lin x x
