Young car drivers, newly qualified, are being targeted by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Pescott.

Apparently, seventeen year olds (mostly young men) are involved in an unrepresentatively high number of road traffic accident just weeks or months after they have their driving tests.

It is an unfortunate fact that some of these young people, after they have passed their driving test, consider themselves experts behind the wheel.

How often have you been driving along the road, aware of perhaps adverse traffic conditions, when a youngster races past with an obvious death wish? It is no wonder that insurance premiums for these people can often approach £1000 a year.

Having said all this, I personally know newly qualified youngsters with whom I would be perfectly at ease as a passenger.

It is a shame that, for the crimes of perhaps a minority of idiots, the majority must pay.

However, life being what it is, maybe the Government felt that the risks to the many drivers who never make an insurance claim are too great to maintain the status quo.

Eighteen will soon be the qualifying age limit for people wishing to obtain a driving licence. Also, they will be required to experience a variety of driving conditions, including night driving and driving up to the national speed limit on dual carriageways.

Might I suggest that, for the sake of those of us who cannot read the minds of other drivers, it should also be mandatory for all newly qualified drivers to show the green L-plates.

We must all accept that no-one wants accidents to happen. But people being people, none of us is infallible and accidents occur.

Every road condition is unique and the sooner each one of us (and that includes me) recognises it, the better.

I think I'm well known in my regard for cyclists, but other road users should be considered, and, I think, it's this experience of both other users' actions in particular and life in general that is what's lacking in a seventeen year old. I would add that quite a few elderly drivers seem to make me quite nervous as well.

There is a saying that you can't put an old head on a young body, and this is never more true than when someone is seated at the steering wheel.

A car, travelling at even a modest speed, is a lethal instrument.

Even I, with thirty odd years of driving experience, must admit to the sense of false safety and security that the modern car with its padding and in house entertainment provides.

I realise that, for some youngsters, being at the steering wheel of a nice car gives a certain amount of street cred.

But I would ask that all concerned with getting from A to B by whatever means consider that everyone on the road is legitimately there, and also that with the right to drive comes the responsibility to drive with care. It's a two-sided coin.

Perhaps some taxi drivers should take note.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.