Study Pans Ban on Novice Drivers in Fast Cars

There is no compelling evidence that laws banning novice motorists from owning or driving high-performance vehicles reduce their chance of being in serious injury crashes, a study shows.

Four Australian states have laws restricting power-to-weight ratios on high-performance vehicles for new drivers.

The 2-year study by the Curtin-Monash Accident Research Center and the University of Adelaide’s Center for Automotive Safety Research finds just 0.2% of all serious injury crashes in West Australia involved a driver aged 17-19 in a high-performance vehicle.

As a result, the Road Safety Council recommends the West Australian government not introduce power-to-weight restriction legislation already in place in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.

Curtin-Monash research fellow Peter Palamara says there was no published evidence to support the move when the four states introduced their restrictions.

Palamara says there is nothing to suggest young novices driving high-performance vehicles had a statistically significant greater risk of being involved in a serious injury crash than those driving non-high-performance vehicles.

“That’s probably surprising for most people – there’s a mistaken belief if you put a young driver behind the wheel of a high-performance vehicle they will undoubtedly crash,” he says in a statement.

It’s known there are characteristics of certain young drivers that place them at greater risk of being in a crash – usually those who engage in other risk-taking behavior such as drinking or using illicit substances.

“If you just restrict on the basis of vehicle, all you may do is push these high-risk drivers into lesser-performance vehicles while still maintaining their risk,” Palamara says.

The research team looked at almost 700 crashes and found only 3% of the vehicles involved had power-to-weight ratios in excess of 134 hp per ton (0.9 t).

The researchers say that besides lacking evidence to substantiate power-to-weight ratio restrictions, none of the four states have evaluated their programs to determine if they have been effective in reducing crashes and injuries among young drivers.

There even is a question about what qualifies as a high-performance vehicle.

“Some jurisdictions, such as New South Wales, have tried to maintain lists and have given up because (the lists) go out of date so quickly,” Palamara says. “You have to take into account how you might manage and administer these sorts of restrictions. You have to enforce them and allow for exemptions, and that takes time and money.”