Obtaining a driver’s license could soon be subject to a major change. For several weeks, the executive has been considering lowering the legal minimum age to take the exam, increasing it from 18 to 17 or even 16 years.
If driving alone from the age of 16 is already possible in a car without a license, this reform under study divides French motorists. “Will people be sufficiently trained at 16? I ask myself the question,” testifies one of them into the BFMTV microphone. “That’s better than the 90 year olds who still have the license,” replied another.
But advancing the legal age of the driving license is not the only issue of this measure. The government would also like to eliminate the 20 hours of mandatory driving to reduce the cost of obtaining them.
Serious concerns among professionals in the sector
This initiative is not without criticism by some driving instructors, who believe that fewer hours will not necessarily mean cheaper.
“We can invoice the classes individually, so in fact someone who is going to do fifteen hours, in a flat rate it will cost almost twenty hours. We bill 50 euros for an hour of driving while in a flat rate it was 45”, says Guillaume Clément, manager of the ALC Conduite driving school.
In France, young people between the ages of 18 and 24 are involved in 17% of traffic accidents despite the fact that they represent only 9% of the population.
“Lowering the age will increase exposure to risks in this category and therefore mathematically it will only increase the accident rate and mortality,” estimates Anne Lavaud, general delegate for Road Safety.
France would thus join the United Kingdom, where you can drive a car at the age of 17, or even the United States, where the license examination is open to 16-year-olds subject to some restrictions, such as the strict prohibition of drive at night.
Source: BFM TV
