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Free licences for drivers over 25: researcher

Swedes who apply for their driver’s licence after turning 25 should get it for free, a researcher has proposed, arguing that the move would reduce traffic deaths by encouraging young people to wait to get their licences.

Published: 1 November 2012 14:54 CET
Free licences for drivers over 25: researcher

“If you take a look at the injuries then maybe it would be beneficial for society to give free driver’s licences to those who wait until they’re 25,” researcher Ulf Björnstig of Umeå University told the TT news agency.

“It would be an incentive to wait.”

In Sweden, drivers under the age of 25 are over represented in traffic accidents and injuries, statistics that Björnstig argued could be improved.

“When the economy was bad in the nineties, very few young people got their licences and the death statistics sank immediately.”

Björnstig, who works as a plastic surgeon but has been researching traffic accidents, stressed that the prospective rule changes wouldn’t alter any current laws.

Rather, young people would be rewarded for waiting, and therefore would save society the expenses that come hand in hand with younger drivers.

The reason young Swedes are involved in so many accidents can be put down to an underdeveloped brain and the difficulty of overcoming peer pressure, said Nils-Petter Gregersen, research head at the Swedish National Road and Transport Institute (Statens väg- och transportforskningsinstitut -VTI), to the Västerbottens-Kuriren newspaper.

Björnstig pointed to foreign countries with stricter rules on young drivers as examples of how regulations can improve both accident and drunk driving statistics.

He argued in favour of countries such as the US, where young motorists have curfews and other youths are forbidden from being in the car with other young drivers.

TT/The Local/og

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DRIVING

EXPLAINED: When can a child sit in the front seat of a car in Switzerland?

Babies and children must be safely secured in a child’s car seat designed for their weight and age group whenever they travel in a car in Switzerland. We look at the rules around driving with children.

Published: 13 April 2023 11:17 CEST
EXPLAINED: When can a child sit in the front seat of a car in Switzerland?

In Switzerland, a simple rule for taking children in motor vehicles has been in place for a good two decades: Every child up to a height of 150 cm or the age of 12 must travel in a suitable child seat.

Its Austrian neighbour has even stricter rules in place. Babies and children in Austria must be correctly secured in a child’s seat up to the age of 14 if they are below 135 cm in height.

The German law takes a more relaxed approach and regulates that children from the age of 12 or those that are taller than 150 cm can ride in the vehicle without a child seat – with the appropriate seat belt, of course.

When can a child sit in the front?

According to the law in Switzerland, once a child has reached a height of 150 cm, they can sit anywhere in the car with or without a child or booster seat.

However, a child needs to reach a minimum height of 150 cm for the safety belts to guarantee their safety in a way that the neck is not constricted while driving in the event of sudden braking or an accident.

In principle, children are allowed to sit on the front passenger seat regardless of their age, however, this is not recommended by experts who argue that children are much safer in the back of the car. Furthermore, if a vehicle is equipped with airbags, rear-facing car seats may only be used if the front airbag on the passenger’s side is deactivated.

A driver at the Stelvio Pass, Santa Maria Val Müstair, Switzerland.

A driver at the Stelvio Pass, Santa Maria Val Müstair, Switzerland. Photo by Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash

Can I be fined for my child travelling without an appropriate car seat?

You can and you will. The fine for transporting an unsecured child under the age of 12 is 60 francs, which, given the risk driving without an appropriate child seat poses to your child’s life, is mild. 

But what about public transport?

Though this may seem illogical to some, Switzerland does not have any safety laws dictating that car seats be used on its buses, meaning it is not uncommon to see mothers standing in the aisle of a packed bus with a baby in a sling while struggling to hold on to a pole for stability.

Though politicians did briefly discuss equipping buses with baby and child seats in 2017 to avoid potential risks to minors, nothing came of it. Ultimately, supplying buses with special seats or introducing seat belts proved unrealistic given the number of seats and considering how often people hop on and off a bus – there is a stop almost every 300 metres in Switzerland.

Instead, drivers are now better informed of the dangers posed to minors travelling on their vehicles and parents are advised to leave children in strollers and not load those with heavy shopping bags.

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