Learners and penalty points

In a comment written during the heady days of the diving test fiasco (only a month ago, but it's about two major government scandals in the past now) I said I was looking for statistics that would compare the accident rates of those who drive on provisional licenses with those who have full licenses. Today's Irish Independent gives us an answer to a different, but possibly related question.

Since the system was introduced five years ago, one-in-six qualified drivers, or 311,000 drivers out of 1.8 million on full licences, have got penalty points.

However only one in 10 provisional licence-holders have so far got penalty points, a total of 44,000 out of 420,000, it has been learned.

I'm not convinced that the penalty points regime is all that great at making the roads safer, but it's what we have. And, for what it's worth, learner drivers have been caught (on average) less often than have those who hold full licenses.

Now, Indo, how about some stats on accidents and fatalities.