Jayne Dowle: We must focus on the risk to young drivers

It if was up to me, I'd raise the driving test age to at least 18. I simply don't believe that the majority of teenagers, days past their 17th birthday, are mature, sensible and aware enough to do it. My sister sailed through her test at 17. When she took dad's car out for the first time, on a short journey to visit a friend, she took a corner too quickly and over-turned it in a ditch. Luckily, she was only (very) shaken, but the car was in a pretty bad state.

I should admit that I was 25 before I passed my own test, on the fourth attempt. I thought I was invincible when I was 17, but I just didn't have the concentration or the road sense to pass. I was gutted that

nerves got the better of me in all those tests, but I'm glad I waited. Back then, your own set of wheels was a bit of a luxury. But these days it seems every teenager expects it as soon as they finish their GCSEs.

Every time I hear about another family ripped apart by a teenage son or daughter driving into a tree, my stomach turns. According to Brake, the road safety charity, four out of five deaths of 10 to 19-year olds (excepting deaths from illness) are in road crashes. When I drive past those heartbreaking road-side shrines to lost youth, I always think, that could be my son, my daughter or my nephew, coming up to 16 and desperate for his driving licence.

So it makes me really angry when I read that the Government is using taxpayers' money to trial yet another speed camera system. Called SpeedSpike, this hi-tech device combines number plate recognition with global positioning satellites to track thousands of cars at once. Why is the Home Office so obsessed with catching motorists for speeding infringements, when the millions it spends on the latest technology would be better invested on teaching young drivers to be safe?

Most people caught for exceeding the speed limit don't do it on

purpose, often don't even realise that they have done it, and are mortified when that "three points on your licence and a 60 fine" letter drops through the letterbox. Like my very law-abiding husband, clobbered for doing 70 miles an hour in a temporary 50-mile-an-hour zone down the A1 last summer. He swears that there was no sign to tell him to slow down, but who is he to argue with the Lincolnshire police force?

Of course, speeding tickets are a licence to print money, and that is why the authorities are so keen on issuing them. Under the Labour Government, revenue from fines has netted almost 1bn, according to the latest official figures. In 2008, some 1.23 million tickets were issued, raising more than 73m, or 200,000 a day, for the Treasury.

But as we drivers have accepted that there is no escape from that spying eye, and learnt to look out for those familiar yellow boxes, revenue is dropping. So no wonder the Government is set on finding ever more complex ways to catch us out.

Not for a moment am I suggesting that drivers should drive as fast as they like and hang the consequences. Speed cameras appear to have reduced the number of overall deaths on our roads, falling to fewer

than 3,000 in 2007, the lowest since records began in 1926.

All I am saying is that some of the money devoted to developing new technology, and reaping its rewards, should be used to develop stringent education and tests for young drivers. I would let them know, from their very first lesson, about the horrific consequences of

reckless driving.

Allow young people to take their test, but put them on probation, regardless of how many penalty points they have clocked up. For the first three years, make it mandatory for them to be checked at regular intervals by an instructor. If they aren't safe, then force them to take their test again.

Limiting the number of passengers they can carry would also be sensible; is anything more scary than a tiny hatchback crammed with teenagers?

I know that this sounds like a huge undertaking, but if driving organisations are debating self-regulation and licence restrictions

for drivers over 70, then surely they must look at both ends of the scale. Being safe on the roads is about more than dodging that flashing speed camera light. It is about taking your life – and everyone else's –in your hands every time you leave the house.