Cumbria’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner has given his backing to a campaign calling for Graduated Driver Licences (GDL) for newly qualified drivers.

Commissioner David Allen met with GDL campaigner Sharron Huddleston to show his support for Caitlin's Campaign as part of National Road Victim Month. 

The GDL could put restrictions on young, newly qualified drivers to prevent them from carrying peer-aged passengers until they have been driving for at least six months. 

It could also include driving curfews, speed limits, mandatory 'P' plates, and limits on car engine sizes. 

Mr Allen said: “Passing your driver’s test as a seventeen-year-old is an incredibly exciting rite of passage. It’s also, in our rural county, something that is a necessity. However, getting behind the wheel of a car without an experienced driver is a massive responsibility.

“The careful introduction of graduated driver’s licences in England and Wales would reduce fatal collisions across the country – as evidenced in countries that have already adopted the scheme.

“Whilst I know that there would be some challenges to the GDL, which I fully appreciate, our goal is to keep our young children, young adults and those passing their tests for the first time safe and to keep them alive.

Sharron lost her 18-year-old daughter in a car crash in 2017 when her friend, who had recently passed her driving test, lost control of the car on a bend on a wet rural road in Cumbria.

Since then, she has been campaigning to introduce the GDL system into the country.

He added: “Sharron is incredibly passionate about ensuring other parents, and young people, do not have to go through the unimaginable loss that she has experienced with losing her daughter.

“I was really pleased to meet with Sharron and I am 100 per cent in support of the introduction of GDLs and will do what I can to help drive this at a local and national level.”