Young Marmalade welcomes young people night-time driving decision
By in
The specialist provider of car insurance for young drivers, Young Marmalade, have said that they welcome the decision from the Department of Transport not to ban new or young drivers from car sharing or driving at nights.
Various driving organisations have been campaigning for a total ban on car sharing and night driving amongst young drivers but Paul O’Sullivan, the head of road safety as the DofT has said that if you ban young drivers from carrying other passengers you are going to end up with even more young drivers on the roads.
He also said that neither did it fit in with the designated driver scheme, where one person doesn’t drink and acts as a chauffeur to the others, or with the various car sharing schemes and it will be almost impossible for the police to enforce it.
He added that the Government did not want to be seen to take liberties away unless there’s a very strong case for doing this. Mr O’Sullivan concluded that the Government was hoping that in-car telematics could also be used to improve the safety of young drivers.
Nigel Lacy, the director of Marketing of Young Marmalade said that, “Inevitably, there are many different points of view concerning road safety but Young Marmalade is of the opinion that by the time a new form of graduating licensing was in place, in-car technology will be linked to insurance risk and provide a more practical method of ensuring vehicles are driven sensibly and safely.”
Young Marmalade have been pioneers in bringing in-car telematics to the young driver market and they are predicting that their scheme will reduce the number of young drivers who are involved in an accident in their first year of motoring by over 14%.
Young Marmalade was a contributor towards the Department of Transport debate about in-car technology last year.
“The problem with any sort of imposed graduated licensing (such as night-time curfews) is that it only really hurts young drivers who are driving in the correct manner and not those responsible for the majority of accidents,” said Mr Lacy.
“Young Marmalade takes the view that what it is doing by combining newer cars with high safety tariffs and on-board technology is a form of graduated licensing, as it provides a way for new drivers to review their own performance.”
