The charity called on the government to act to reduce insurance costs for young drivers by introducing a zero-rate of insurance premium tax (IPT) on policies where licence holders under the age of 25 have completed an “approved driving or riding course”, and to create a Young Drivers Taskforce within the Department for Transport (DfT).
Since the start of 2020 almost 800 children aged between 13 and 16 have been given an IN10 endorsement – the code used by the police for “using a vehicle uninsured against third party risks” – according to data obtained by a road safety charity.
The data, which came from a freedom of information request to the licensing agency DVLA, also showed that the number of drivers between 17 and 24 penalised for not having insurance jumped from 532 in 2020 to a peak of 20,026 in 2023, dropping back to 13,556 last year.
The IN10 endorsement is one of the key sanctions police have against e-scooters being illegally used, together with confiscating them, and the charity suggested that this was behind the leap in the numbers being given out to children.
Its director of policy and standards, Nicholas Lyes, said: “The government needs to urgently bring forward legislation on private e-scooters, which must include minimum [technical standards], speed limiters and proposals for riders to have a minimum level of competency.”.
