County Durham dad calling for tougher restrictions on underage drivers
Andrew Rowlands from Consett died in June 2020 following a collision
Last updated 1st May 2025
A County Durham Dad is calling on the government to ban the sale of second hand and unroadworthy cars to underage drivers.
He has set up a petition to make it a legal requirement at the point of sale of a secondhand vehicle to request proof of age and photo id, update the current V5C, and develop a seller portal via the DVLA vehicle check system.
18-year-old Andrew Rowlands died in a collision five years ago, after an underaged driver was able to purchase a dangerous and unroadworthy car for £100 on social media.
His Dad, John, is urging for a change in the law so that no other family has to go through the same heart break.
He said: "You wouldn't be able to go and buy a gun like that. You wouldn't be able to go and buy a bottle of alcohol, or a lottery scratch card. Plus, many, many other things.
"It's a very dangerous and wicked loophole that's open at the moment in terms of private vehicle sales.
"We're not talking about buying a car from a garage here. These have much more stringent measures and control how dealerships do things.
"The people we're talking about here are your private vehicle sales, predominantly your cheaper end of the market.
"On the bottom of the V5 at the moment you've got e-mail address that’s optional and telephone number that’s optional. The most important one, driving licence number is optional. We would like to see that made mandatory.
"Andrew lost his life because there was an underage individual who never even had a driving lesson, yet alone a driving licence was able to buy a totally unroadworthy car off a social media platform the night before for £100.
"If there had been tighter regulations in place where he would have to produce a driving licence at the point of sale, he wouldn't have been able to buy that car."