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ABSTRACT: Road accidents involving young drivers are an important public health issue in Quebec. People under age 25 account for 12% of all licence holders and 24% of drivers involved in bodily injury accidents in Quebec in 1996. The main factors that would explain the overrepresentation of young drivers in accidents is a high propensity to take chances and a lack of driving experience.

To counter these two risk factors, the concept of graduated access to the driving privilege appeared as the approach with greatest potential. Accordingly, for learner's licence holders, the learning period was lengthened. At the same time, the obligation to take a pratical course through a recognized driving school was withdrawn. Both in the case of learner's licence and probationary licence holders, the demerit point ceiling that triggers licence suspension was lowered considerably and the notion of zero tolerance with regard to alcohol use and driving was brought into effect.

To evaluate the impact of this reform, the accident toll of new drivers after the reform was compared with that beforehand. The observation periods before and after the reform are of equal length and cover the same months. Finally, in order to exclude as much as possible the impact of other factors on the change in safety record between the two periods, the corresponding change in the accident toll of a control group was taken into consideration. The results must be interpreted by taking into account the short time of observation and the inherent limits of comparison with a control group.

First of all, the reform did considerably influence the number of learner's licence holders as well as holders of a probationary licence. The principal reason for the change noted is very likely the lengthening of the learning period.

As concerns the impact of the reform on the safety record, it brought about a decline in the number of accident victims. This decrease holds true both for learnerís licence and probationary licence holders. Moreover, there was a reduction in all levels of severity of bodily injuries considered, both in terms of the number of victims as well as the rate of victims per 100,000 licence holders. For example, the number of victims killed or seriously injured in accidents involving a learnerís licence or probationary licence holder dropped by 11.7% due to the reform.

In addition to the methodological limits mentioned above, it must also be realized that the effects of the reform are still being felt on the two population groups, which had not yet stabilized by June 1998, so results could still change significantly.

This is a really interesting and important finding. As one who has developed a 4-minute test that accurately predicts who among the new drivers will crash, I , naturally, would like to suggest the addition of said diagnostic test to the Canadian program.

Just in the the last month, we have scored data from a trial with 560 people between the ages of 18 and about 45. The test identified (blind trial) had a hit rate of 65% in identifying the drivers in the upper 15th percentile for crash frequency while false alarming 11%.

We had seen this many times before with drivers of cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, etc. The remarkable finding was the attitude data. People under 25 were significantly higher on factors such as anger, power need, agreement with drink/drive, etc. than people >25. The high risk people >25 were much higher on those factors than were the low risk people. In sharp contrast, people under 25 who were high risk on the test scored LOWER on these factors.

In other words, there is a "disconnect" between what young people believe and how they behave. The other finding that got me was that a 4-min, non-verbal information processing assessment predicted "attitude", suggesting that personality is more an effect than it is a cause.

Participants are invited to come to our web site www.waypointresearch.com) to have a look and, hopefully, find common interests. Mike Cantor

Hello from beautiful Prince Edward Island. Although we do not have Graduated Licensing in effect here, as of yet, we do have incentives that encourage a "GDL" attitude in our 16 year old drivers. Foe example, if they are participating in a Road Safety Education Course (commonly know as Dr Ed) they can obtain their learners permit at age 15 years and 6 months (15&1/2). I, as a road Safety Educator, have seen a tremendous difference in the skill levels of novice drivers who have their learners for 6-7 months before being licensed compared to their counterparts who have been practising for only 3 months. I frimly believe that we, as educators, must encourage and lobby for extended learning phases and testing that is based on skill levels and abilities to access suitations, gather information and make decisions based on the facts at hand. Testing based on "the rules and how perfectly you appy them" is no longer acceptable and does not create safe enviorments for our novice drivers. Thanks for your interest.....Louise

This is a very important paper. It presents us with encouraging results for a partial graduated licensing system (i.e. zero BAC and extended learner period). Partial systems may be politically more palatable in some jurisdictions, and it is important to know that they offer substantial safety benefits. It would be interesting to know if an 11.4% reduction in deaths and serious injury for the learner category was ever observed in prior years (say in the period between 1985 and 1995. I doubt that this was ever the case, but some time series data would make your case even stronger. I am certain you will be doing follow-up studies. When do you anticipate releasing the next set of results? Also do you have any figures on social cost savings derived from this intervention?