Those who follow the discussions surrounding the planned EU driving license reform quickly encounter headlines such as “Truck driving license from age 18,” “Supervised driving for trucks,” or “EU relaxes rules for professional drivers.” Depending on one’s personal stance, these reports are either celebrated as a long-overdue step against driver shortages or criticized as a risky intervention in road safety.
However, both perspectives fall short. The real question is not whether an 18-year-old should be allowed to drive a truck. The real question is why the European Union is even considering changing the entry requirements for the profession of professional driver.
The answer to this does not lie in traffic law, but rather on the yards of freight forwarders, in the HR departments of logistics companies, and ultimately on the roads of Europe.
An Industry Searching for New Talent
Road freight transport is one of Europe’s most important economic sectors. Every day, food, medicine, machinery, construction materials, and countless other goods are transported. Without trucks, a significant portion of supply chains would collapse within days.
At the same time, the industry has been struggling for years with a problem that is constantly worsening: there is a shortage of drivers.
Many professional drivers now belong to older generations and will be retiring in the coming years. The influx of new recruits cannot yet compensate for these departures. Numerous companies have been searching for months or even years for driving personnel without being able to fill their open positions.
This is by no means an exclusively German problem. Similar developments are being observed in almost all member states of the European Union. The European Commission assumes that the driver shortage could, in the long term, become a serious burden for the economy and supply security.
Against this background, it is not surprising that politics is looking for ways to facilitate access to the profession.
Age Is Not the Real Problem
At first glance, lowering the minimum age for the truck driving license seems logical. The earlier one can enter the profession, the sooner one becomes available to the labor market.
However, this is precisely where the real debate begins.
Most industry experts doubt that the minimum age is the decisive factor behind the driver shortage. Anyone who talks to vocational students, trainees, or young people standing at a career crossroads will quickly realize that other factors play a significantly larger role.
Moreover, entry into the profession is already possible today earlier than many people assume. Within the training program for professional drivers or personnel in vehicle operations, the truck driving license can be obtained at age 18. For many trainees, handling heavy commercial vehicles is therefore not entirely new territory. They learn to drive gradually within the company environment, accompanied by trainers, driving instructors, and experienced colleagues.
The planned EU regulations do not create the possibility of driving a truck at 18 years old. Rather, they expand and harmonize a path that already exists in part today.
The real challenges lie elsewhere. Long working hours, shift work, time pressure, lack of parking spaces, weeks away from home, and sometimes a negative public image of the profession deter many potential applicants. In addition comes the high level of responsibility. Modern articulated trucks can weigh up to 40 tonnes gross weight and require a high degree of concentration, technical understanding, and sense of responsibility.
The idea that thousands of young people would suddenly become professional drivers simply because they are allowed to obtain their license a few years earlier therefore appears at least questionable.
Why the EU Is Acting Anyway
Nevertheless, the European Union is pursuing this path. There are several reasons for this.
On the one hand, existing regulations within Europe should be harmonized. Many member states already have different exceptions and special provisions for young drivers. The reform aims to bring more uniformity here.
On the other hand, the goal is to make entering the profession more attractive. Those who start an apprenticeship directly after school should gain practical experience as early as possible and not be hindered by differing age limits.
From a political perspective, it is therefore less about sending inexperienced teenagers onto the road as quickly as possible. Rather, the aim is to make the path into the profession overall simpler and more predictable.
Supervised Driving as a Compromise
In this context, the introduction of supervised driving for heavy trucks should also be seen.
The idea behind it is simple: driving practice has long been considered one of the most important factors for safe driving. Especially with large vehicles, many situations cannot be conveyed solely in lessons or on training grounds.
Those who spend several months traveling under the guidance of experienced drivers gain experience with difficult traffic situations, varying weather conditions, and the everyday handling of a heavy commercial vehicle.
The EU is thus pursuing a middle ground between an earlier entry into the profession and the desire for high road safety. Whether this concept will succeed in practice, however, depends largely on how individual member states implement the regulations.
The Real Construction Sites Remain Unresolved
As understandable as the reform may be, it does not solve many of the fundamental problems of the profession.
A young person does not decide against becoming a professional driver solely because of an age limit. Anyone who has been on the road away from home for months, works regularly under time pressure, and often struggles to find a suitable parking spot for their rest periods will face these challenges regardless of whether they hold an earlier driving license.
There is also a societal problem at play. While nearly everyone depends on functioning supply chains, the profession of a driver frequently receives far less recognition than its importance to the economy and daily life would suggest.
Many drivers therefore feel that while there is constant talk about the shortage of drivers, the underlying causes are rarely addressed consistently.
More Than Just a Driving License Reform
The current EU reform shows above all one thing: the shortage of drivers has grown so large that political decision-makers at the European level are now acting.
The planned changes to the minimum age, accompanied driving, and mutual recognition of driving licenses should not be seen as a revolution, but rather as an attempt to remove existing barriers and make the profession more accessible to young people.
Whether this is enough, I dare to doubt. Of course, there will be some additional drivers. However, the actual causes of the driver shortage will not be eliminated by this alone.
Moreover, not every sector of the transport industry will benefit equally from the new regulations. In certain areas, permits, customer requirements, or internal guidelines already today require a certain level of professional experience. For example, those who carry out dangerous goods transport, special transport, or particularly demanding transports will not be able to employ every novice driver immediately in the future. More driving license holders therefore do not automatically mean more drivers available for immediate use.
Sometimes I have the impression that people describe the problem constantly but are unwilling to draw the resulting consequences. For years we have heard that drivers are missing. At the same time, applicants repeatedly report that they must initially prove they already have a job after completing the basic qualification and obtaining the driving license.
One inevitably asks where the logic behind this lies. If we truly have such a large shortage of drivers, the answer should actually be: “You want to become a professional driver? Good. Here is the training course. Good luck.” Instead, additional barriers are often erected.
The discussion thus resembles many other political measures in the transport industry. Instead of consistently addressing the causes of the driver shortage, attention is frequently focused on combating its symptoms. This includes discussions about lower age limits, easier access routes, or recruiting drivers from abroad. In contrast, there is significantly less talk about the actual reasons why many people decide against the profession or leave it after a few years.
This pattern was already evident in the discussion about recruiting drivers from third countries. There too, the main question was how to replace missing drivers, while the actual causes of the shortage remained largely untouched. Anyone who wishes to delve deeper into this topic can find an extensive contribution on this subject here in the blog.
The challenges have been openly on the table for years: working hours, lack of parking spaces, increasing time pressure, bureaucratic burdens, and often low societal appreciation. Unless these problems are addressed, the driver shortage will hardly be solvable in the long term. Gaining new drivers is one thing; keeping them in the profession permanently is the real challenge.
Therefore, the real question is not whether a young person will be allowed to drive a truck at 18 years of age in the future. The crucial question is rather why fewer and fewer people want to take up this profession at all. Until a convincing answer is found to this, new driving license regulations will at best mitigate but not eliminate the driver shortage.
The Digital Driving License as a Step into the Future
While the discussion around the minimum age and accompanied driving receives particular attention, the reform contains another component that may have significantly greater long-term effects: the digital driving license.
For several years now, the European Union has pursued the goal of simplifying administrative processes and gradually digitizing important documents. With the driving license reform, a digitally recognized driving license valid across Europe is therefore to be introduced, which will be available on the smartphone in addition to the classic card-based driving license.
For professional drivers, this could simplify daily life in many situations. Documents would always be available, could be shown more quickly during inspections, and would no longer need to be carried in physical form. At the same time, the digital driving license is intended to be usable uniformly across Europe and integrated into future digital identity solutions of the European Union.
However, this step also raises questions. Data protection, data security, and the technical reliability of the systems will be decisive for whether acceptance among citizens is actually achieved. Not everyone wants to carry their most important documents exclusively on a smartphone. For this reason, the classic card-based driving license is also to be retained in the future.
Unlike the debate over lower age limits, the digital driving license is an area where most road users can reasonably expect practical benefits. Whether privately or professionally: the digitization of many administrative processes cannot be stopped in the long term.
Conclusion
The reform of the EU driving license directive shows that politics has now recognized the increasing shortage of drivers in road freight transport as a serious problem. Lower age limits, accompanied driving, and a digital driving license are intended to facilitate access to the profession while simultaneously harmonizing the framework conditions within Europe.
Many of the planned measures are indeed understandable. In particular, stronger harmonization within the European Union and the digitization of the driving license can bring practical benefits. The idea of enabling young people to enter the profession earlier is also fundamentally not wrong.
Nevertheless, the crucial question remains open: Will this actually lead to more people becoming professional drivers in the long term?
That is precisely where my doubts lie. The reform addresses the symptoms of a problem whose causes have been known for years. Poor working conditions, lack of infrastructure, high time pressure, insufficient appreciation, and constantly new bureaucratic requirements cannot be eliminated by lowering the age limit.
If one wants to combat the driver shortage in the long term, the profession must be made more attractive—not on paper, but in the daily lives of those who practice it. As long as little changes in this regard, new driving license regulations will certainly make headlines and possibly remove some hurdles. However, they will not solve the actual problems of the industry.
The question is therefore not whether an 18-year-old can drive a truck. The question is why fewer and fewer people want to take up this profession at all.
Sources and further information
European Commission: Modernized driving license rules https://transport.ec.europa.eu/
Council of the European Union: New rules for driving licenses https://www.consilium.europa.eu/
My article: Why drivers from third countries do not solve the driver shortage
