Free young driver training under Vic ALP

Free defensive driver training will be compulsory for Victorian learner drivers if Labor is elected under a $146 million plan to cut the road toll and improve road safety.

By 2018, every 16-year-old who gets their learner's permit will have to do the course during school, under Labor's $24 million plan.

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews said the approach was radical and would prepare young people for dangerous situations.

It would also address the chronic over-representation of young drivers in the road toll.

"The human cost of those tragedies, we can't put a cost on that," Mr Andrews told reporters on Monday.

"It's common sense. It's going to save lives."

Mr Andrews said Labor would sit down with experts and design the course.

But the government says there's no evidence to show the driving program will improve road safety.

Labor's package includes building an $80 million crash and trauma education centre so young drivers can see the devastation caused by unsafe driving and bad decisions.

It aims to be a global hub for road safety, featuring simulators and presentations from victims and emergency workers. It will also run diversionary programs for repeat offenders.

Labor will also fund a program to help disadvantaged young people get their driver's licence if they have no car and reward the most responsible young drivers with a free three-year licence.

Premier Denis Napthine said there was no evidence that compulsory driver training would improve road safety.

The RACV and other experts had agreed that ensuring young people clocked up 120 hours of driving under supervision was the best way to improve road training, he said.

"Road safety should be a bipartisan approach to make our roads safer, it shouldn't be subject to politically motivated, populist thought bubbles," Dr Napthine told reporters.

"Experts make it very clear they don't support compulsory driver education training."