Graduated licencing program

On March 1 2004 in Coquitlam, a 15 year old girl was killed while trying to go across a cross walk. Several other cars were stopped at this well lit cross walk to let the girl and her cousin cross when a young driver drove straight through and hit the 15 year old girl resulting in her death. Towards the end of February a young driver had stolen a vehicle and caused a horrible hit and run accident that severely injured a mother and her two adult children. This is only one of many accidents happening everyday involving young drivers. Whether on the news or through family and friends we are always hearing about young drivers being hurt or killed in car accidents.

According to ICBC during the first two years of B.C.'s Graduated Licensing Program they were successful in reducing the new driver crash rate by 26%. But most of the crash reductions have come from the longer learner stage when new drivers must have a supervisor. While drivers in the novice stage are still over-represented in crashes, being almost 45% more likely to be involved in a crash than an experienced driver. These crashes involving young drivers tend to be more severe.

My parents and even my grandparents remember what it was like when they got their licenses and they think that even back then young drivers were just as irresponsible as they are now. They believe that there were just as many accidents injuring and killing young drivers as there are today, and feel one of the reasons it has become such an issue now is that the population has greatly increased, increasing the number of drivers and as a result the number of accidents. The other main reason for making these accidents seem like such a problem now is the media. Today almost everything that happens you will hear about in the news, where as twenty or thirty years ago it wasn’t like that. Therefore, in the past when all these accidents involving young drivers were occurring, it wasn’t well known to the general public because the media wasn’t there to let everyone know what was happening like it does today.

ICBC has also made changes to the novice stage. The length of the novice level has been changed from eighteen months to twenty-four months and if they receive a driving prohibition within this period they have to start the novice stage from the beginning. Having them start over again can be an incentive to be a responsible driver but many young drivers aren’t to concerned with this because it hasn’t taken their right to drive away, and having the novice period longer doesn’t change much because most young drivers are only concerned with if they can actually drive or not. They have added a new restriction that all new drivers must only have one passenger, unless it is immediate family or if a supervisor twenty-five years or older is present. This restriction was put in place so that when accidents do occur

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