Driving licence crackdown wanted after ‘horrifying’ crash that killed three teens and taxi driver
Transport bosses want to restrict young Greater Manchester drivers’ licences after slamming ‘horrifying behaviour’ seen in recent fatal crashes.
The city was rocked earlier this month when a ‘horrifying’ crash killed four people in Bolton, when a Seat Leon collided head-on with a Citroen C4 Picasso taxi on January 11.
Mohammed Jibrael Mukhtar, 18, the driver of the Seat, and passengers Farhan Imtiyaz Patel, 18, and Mohammed-Danyaal Asghar-Ali, 19, lost their lives — as did taxi driver 54-year-old Masrob Ali. Three weeks on, four other passengers remain in hospital with ‘severe and life-altering injuries’, according to police.
Recently released ‘stark’ figures also showed a jump in the number of people killed and seriously injured on Greater Manchester’s roads from 799 in 2023 to 1,024 a year later.
“Today’s report shows that in 2024, for the first time in several years, more people died on Greater Manchester roads than the year before. 51 lives were lost in 2024. And I want to take a moment just to remember each and every one of them,” Greater Manchester active travel commissioner Dame Sarah Storey said at a Bee Network committee meeting on Thursday (January 29).
She added: “The same data shows Greater Manchester still has some of the lowest rates of deaths and serious injuries per head and per miles driven when compared to other city regions in the country.
“At this point, it’s also appropriate to reference the truly horrific behaviour of drivers that have led to recent horrifying incidents on Greater Manchester roads.”
Leaders are now ‘recommitting’ to the ‘vision zero’ road safety strategy, which aims to completely eliminate casualties on Greater Manchester’s roads by 2040. A range of safety measures are set to be rolled out in the next three years, but Dame Storey wants to see a radical overhaul of young drivers’ licences.
The Paralympian wants to follow Northern Ireland’s example and roll-out ‘graduated drivers’ licences’, which place extra conditions on new drivers. She explained: “It’s something we put forward to the government in the national road safety strategy. There’s a consultation out on that. We will feed into evidence required for that.”
In Northern Ireland, graduated licences will come in from October 1. They require learners to wait six months before they take their test, display a special plate on their car for two years after they pass, follow six month ‘night-time driving restrictions’ if they’re under-24, and abide by ‘age related nighttime passenger restrictions for newly qualified drivers, with exemption for immediate family members’.
Other measures in Greater Manchester’s ‘vision zero’ drive include every primary school being offered o road safety training from the fire service for years 3-6, and the creation of a new GMFRS young driver road safety education programme team, chief fire officer Dave Russel also told the committee.