This email alert just came through from DfT. It’s about allowing learner drivers on motorways.
Let’s just take a time-out here before we get all excited. This precise subject has kicked off at least twice in the last 10 years, and each time it was put across as ‘definitely going to happen’. Changes to government killed it stone dead both times, just as it has the various other times it’s kicked off going back further still.
This current government is about as stable as a two-legged stool as a result of Brexit and Theresa May’s unbelievably bad appointments to both the Cabinet and other posts, and her obvious inability to see how ‘Brexit’ and ‘business as normal’ are mutually exclusive. It isn’t going to survive past one term at best, and even if it does it’s going to have a lot on its plate. This particular issue will be way down the list, and quite frankly – and disappointingly – I can see it sinking without trace just like it does every other time.
Having said that, I really hope that I’m wrong. Allowing learners on to motorways is massively overdue, and I would welcome it.
The proposals would mean that only ADIs in cars fitted with dual controls would be allowed to conduct motorway lessons. Roof boxes (advertising the school) would not be allowed, because they can (and do sometimes) blow off at speed. Motorway lessons would be ‘voluntary’ – I’m not 100% certain what that means, but it’s probably a get-out clause for people who don’t live anywhere near a motorway (and, unfortunately, those ADIs who – through every fault of their own – can’t afford the fuel for the additional miles a motorway lesson would entail, and who wouldn’t do them even if they could).
There is a consultation in that link I gave for people to add their own comments.