Road Safety Week 2006 - Reducing young driver car accidents

There are approximately one million car accidents reported in the UK on a yearly basis and 1,675 people died as a result of car accidents during 2005. As a result, there is clearly a great need to increase road safety awareness among drivers in the UK.

Some motorists are aware of the risks involved with driving but that just isn't good enough. All motorists should be aware of the number of road users, passengers and pedestrians killed by the machines that we rely on daily and do something about this rising death toll.

How can car accident rates be reduced?
This is where government campaigns such as Think! and road safety charities such as Brake come in. Brake aims to prevent road accidents through education and relieve suffering of bereaved and those seriously injured in road accidents through support services. Read more about Brake at www.brake.org.uk.

Every year Brake organises a Road Safety Week to encourage involvement within the community and increase general public awareness about potential road safety issues and car accident risks. Road safety Week always has a significant theme, relating to the past year's most prominent road safety concerns such as car accident rates and the people that most suffered personal injuries and fatalities.

Last year, 2005, Road Safety Week was entitled 'Watch out! There's a Kid About!' and it focussed on child pedestrian and cyclist safety. Launches were held at 11 schools throughout the country and were attended by children, teachers and the bereaved parents of children who have been killed in road accidents while walking or cycling.

This year's campaign also focuses on young people and the safety of young drivers.

Why focus on young drivers?
13% of people who hold driving licences are aged 25 or under and there are many more young motorists on our roads driving illegally. It is a well known fact that young motorists are more likely to have a car accident than older motorists. They are also far more likely to suffer car crash fatalities and personal injuries. Specifically, when considering 16-19 year olds, 1,153 were either killed or suffered serious personal injuries in Great Britain during 2004. Similarly, 2,914 20-29 year olds were killed or suffered serious personal injuries. Further, young male drivers are at more risk of having car accidents than female drivers and 17-20 year old male motorists are seven times more likely to be involved in a car crash than all male drivers.

There are many explanations as to why young drivers are at major risk of having a car accident:

• Speed - Young drivers are statistically proven to take more risks than other drivers and many do not even consider that they are putting their own life and the lives of others at risk if they hit the accelerator and exceed the speed limit. Young drivers also seem to be the worst culprits when it comes to road races and the more that they are egged on by friends, the more rubber they are likely to burn.
• Alcohol and drugs - Young people like to go out and have a good time more than most but having a few pints down your local or taking drugs (recreational or prescription) while in a nightclub can have an affect on your awareness and perception at the best of times. If you get behind the wheel of a car when under the influence you are simply asking to be involved in a car accident.
• Passengers - Just as having screaming kids in the backseat can be a distraction for parents, having a car full of chatting mates and a blaring car stereo can be a major car accident hazard. Drivers with little experience especially need to use their full concentration when driving. It is also tempting to play to the crowd when you have such a captive audience but young drivers should be wary not to give in to temptation as their friends won't be too happy about receiving serious passenger injuries.
• Night driving - Surprisingly, some motorists think that as soon as the sun goes down that no one can see them and they take many more risks and break all manner of road safety laws. For example, young men, as the biggest risk takers, are 17 times more likely to suffer serious personal injuries or lose their life in a road accident between 2am and 5am than male drivers of other ages.
• Safety features - For whatever reason, be them uncool or uncomfortable, young people are much less likely to wear their seatbelts, especially if they are carrying passengers. The risk of obtaining a fine if they are caught not wearing one in a moving vehicle or the risk of sustaining fatal personal injuries is clearly of no concern to them.
• Information overload - When you first get behind the wheel, as well as being exciting it can be quite overwhelming. Driving requires a lot of concentration no matter how experienced you are but there is so much to remember and when you are new to driving you feel under so much pressure to get it right. You have to steer, change gear, indicate, use mirrors, look out for road signs, change lanes.the list is endless.

Older, not necessarily wiser
Having said all this, there are also many mature drivers on our roads that haven't even taken a driving test and probably haven't glanced at a copy of the Highway Code for several decades. If some of the older drivers on UK roads were required to take a test under the scrutiny of a modern day examiner in today's increasingly difficult test conditions it is likely that they would fall at the first hurdle.

Many drivers who are aged over 60 have poorer eyesight than young drivers, a decreased sense of awareness and muscular conditions that they are unlikely to report to the DVLA. This means that although the statistics show that young drivers are the bane of the roads, older drivers are also likely candidates for causing car accidents.

What's the answer?
Well, if we return to the matter of young drivers there are a couple of options for cutting the car accident rates at the hands of these motorists.

Firstly, there are specific road safety schemes in place, such as Pass Plus which has been designed by the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) to teach young people how to deal with a wide range of road and traffic situations and increase their awareness of all kinds of hazards that they may come across including: driving at night, in the town, in all weathers, on country roads, on dual carriageway and on motorways.

Secondly, it should be obligatory for new drivers to display P plates for the first two years that they drive. New drivers have to take extra caution for the first two years of their driving career anyway seeing as they can lose their licence if they receive six points or more on their licence. P plates would be a reminder to both them and other drivers of their inexperience.

Thirdly, Brake has proposed that a graduated driver licence system should be introduced in the UK, allowing new drivers to build on their driving skills and experience over a period of time. The number of passengers that new drivers could carry may be controlled along with night driving, among other restrictions which in theory should reduce the number of car accidents caused by new, young drivers.

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