The grief of parents on the loss of their children is a powerful force, the energy created by it can be harnessed in many ways. Most commonly, it takes the form of personal anguish, but occasionally it can drive those who suffer from it to seek a solution to the very thing that caused them to experience such horror in the first place. Recognising this, it is not without a great deal of respect and empathy that I feel the need to speak out against the calls by Crystal Owen, with the support of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), to bring in Graduated Driving Licences for young drivers.

Having lost her 17-year-old son in a tragic car accident in November last year, when he and his friends were driving in Wales, Crystal has been campaigning for the government to introduce a Graduated Driving Licence scheme. This would place heavy restrictions on drivers under the age of 21, although I have heard suggestions that this could be as high as 25. Limits like not being able to carry passengers of a similar age, or a ban on night-time driving, are intended to help prevent deaths on the roads. But even if we accept that young drivers are disproportionately more likely to be in a crash, is there not a principle at stake here? One which will be sacrificed on the altar of safety.

It is important to remember that except for those under the age of 18, we are talking about legally-qualified adults. Who have the right to vote, get married, and engage in full-time economic activity, and who pay the same taxes as all other adult citizens. Restricting the freedom of movement of younger drivers could seriously undermine the principle of adulthood as something attained on one’s eighteenth birthday.

Risk is a part of everyday life, and a reasonable degree of risk must be accepted in a free society. Yet it seems that increasingly there is an idea from some people that it is the role of legislation to abolish risk entirely. Yes, we should do something to prevent more deaths on the roads, but in doing so, why should we punish law-abiding young drivers, many of whom obey traffic rules to an extent you may struggle to find in their older counterparts.

The idea of restriction on nighttime driving is particularly relevant to my own experience. During both the year I spent working in a supermarket before going to university and over the last summer, I found myself regularly driving after dark, as a result of the hours that I was working. Since I was in both cases an adult, there was nothing wrong with this and I was entitled to work all the unsocial hours I wanted. Going home I simply turned my headlights on and drove with greater caution than I would during the day. Crystal Owen’s campaign says that their reforms would exempt young drivers from night-time restrictions in cases of necessity or work. But I can’t imagine that these changes would have any effect on the cases I have mentioned.

Instead, it is not hard to imagine as a result of this well-meaning reform, police and traffic officials staking out the roundabouts and junctions of the country, seeking to catch young drivers after dark, and demanding official work permits and travel passes from completely innocent people in some Soviet-like crackdown. And as anyone who’s ever sold alcohol in a shop will know, the visual distinction between someone in their late twenties compared to those younger than them is often very hard to see. Thus the night-time driving crackdown will inevitably affect more than its intended demographic, and quickly make travel after dark a needlessly difficult thing.

Beyond the threat to young peoples’ freedom and the potential imposition of more needless policing, Graduated Driving Licences unfairly single out young drivers as the singular threat to road safety. While it is undeniable that young people are over represented in accident statistics, with our aging population and thus a greater number of elderly and infirm people on the road, I predict that the latter age group may soon become a greater threat. With their dodgy knees and poor response times, they are already becoming more and more hazardous. Yet I doubt that this politically vital age group will be targeted. Instead, young people could become more and more infantilised in the pursuit of safety as a consequence of the good intentions of Crystal Owen and the AA.