Why drinking and driving is prohibited for learner’s and provisional licence holders

August 22, 2024

I have a lot of young adult driver’s who ask why drinking and driving is illegal for them but legal for fully licenced driver’s to drink up to 0.5 blood alcohol and drive. The short answer is that learner and provisional licence holders are new to the roads and therefore, are less experienced to handle certain conditions let alone handling conditions in an altered state of consciousness i.e. being influenced by alcohol.

There are 3 main reasons why learner’s and provisional licence holders are prohibited from drinking and driving. This includes:

Learner’s and Provisional licence holders are statistically more susceptible to accidents on the road
Learner’s and Provisional licence holders are less experienced on the road than fully licenced drivers
Learner’s and Provisional licence holders are still building neural pathways while learning the roads and how to drive, therefore drinking and driving is not legal for individuals who are in this stage of driving.

So please, look after yourself and your community as a new driver. Do NOT drink and drive!