The risk of being involved in a collision ‘increases significantly’ in the run up to Christmas, analysis by insurethebox suggests.
insurethebox claims data suggests that collision risk rises by 22% in December, while the number of ‘accident alerts’ – used to notify emergency services of potential collisions involving policy holders – rises by 76%.
While acknowledging the impact of poor weather conditions, insurethebox says drink-driving plays a ‘key role’ in the added risk – and young drivers are six and a half times more likely to be involved in a drink-drive related collision than someone in their 40s.
In the run up to the festive period, insurethebox also is highlighting the amount of time it takes for the residual effects of alcohol to wear off.
According to DrinkAware, alcohol is removed from the blood at the rate of about one unit an hour. This means that drivers may still be over the legal limit the next morning – which according to insurethebox data is already the most dangerous time for young drivers to be on the road.
Simon Rewell, road safety manager at insurethebox, said: “While motorists are having fun during the festive season, we urge them to be mindful of the increased accident risk this time of year – in particular around drink driving.
“Drink driving significantly increases the possibility of an accident, and could also jeopardise an individual’s job if they drive for work.
“The largest proportion of failed breath tests actually happen on Sunday mornings, which is the most dangerous for young drivers on the road, even before adding the judgement impairing effects of alcohol.”
Agreed Hugh, with a lack of safe space comes a lack of good forward and indeed overall vision. That is if traffic is travelling at about 20 mph and therefore some 20 ft apart. The full stopping distance is considered to be 45 ft [ H.C.] or some 65 ft [DVSA], At merely 20 ft [ thinking distance]and accelerating or doing 20 mph there is absolutely no room for error should a pedestrian walk or run out from behind the vehicle in front.
Further exacerbating the danger is that many drivers in such a following on position can and do focus on the rear of the vehicle in front [visual fixation] and some can also suffer from increased attention deficit, concerning themselves with other things rather than the road in front.
The giving of greater and therefore safer space would reduce such RTC’s and make all our roads safer, for all.
R.Craven
0
Whilst Bob Craven and Nigel Allbright’s comments on too-close following are valid, the ‘too close to stop’ problem applies not just to drivers following each other, but also to drivers ‘too close to stop’ for other road users who may cross their path – specifically pedestrians, especially at this time of year, in a hurry and not checking the road before crossing – couple that with a cold rainy day and darkness falling late afternoon and it is not surprising that collisions may rise.
Hugh Jones
+2
I think it’s largely driver distraction. How many of these additional accidents at holiday time had a bunch of friends mucking about in the car?
Peter Austin, Bishopstoke
0
I agree with Pat , Nigel and Hugh. Lets not forget that drivers in a hurry or under pressure have a predisposition to drive too close to the vehicle in front at the best of times. I mean, do we see extra space between vehicles in bad weather?.. No we do not. Do we see more safe space with snow on the ground?….No we do not. Do we see more space given in the darker days and night?.. No we do not. Do we see more distance when the road surface is wet ?…No we do not. Do we see more space being given when stopped say at lights or in a traffic queue… No we do not.
All the above are circumstances of increased risk when speed should be reduced and distance increased and yet there is no action to reduce the likelyhood of an incident at all. Under many circumstances the general rule is to form a queue and stick as closely as possible to the rear lights of the vehicle in front.
Not exactly a safe position for anyone to be in and as Nigel has previously said, just an accident waiting to happen.
R.Craven
+4
Adding to Pat’s comment, there are more road users out and about at this time of year, no doubt with a sense of urgency and under pressure to ‘get things done’ before Xmas, hence they’re probably going a bit faster than usual, are a bit less observant, a bit more impatient and… dark rainy nights don’t help either.
Hugh Jones
+1
> While acknowledging the impact of poor weather conditions, insurethebox says drink-driving plays a ‘key role’ in the added risk – and young drivers are six and a half times more likely to be involved in a drink-drive related collision than someone in their 40s.
Northamptonshire Police are currently naming people who have been *charged* with a drink/drug offence, and oddly enough, few young folk are being detected & arrested.
David Weston, Corby
+2
So “young drivers are six and a half times more likely to be involved in a drink-drive related collision than someone in their 40s.” So what?
That doesn’t allow us to make an intelligent judgement as to what the reason for that might be – without also knowing: a) what proportion of *all* drivers are “young drivers” and what proportion are “in their 40s” and b) what proportion of “young drivers” and of drivers “in their 40s” and who are *not* involved in collisions would be described as “drink-driving”.
Imagine if the story was instead “dark-haired drivers are six and a half times more likely to be involved in a collision than someone with red hair” or “Drivers of grey cars are six and a half times more likely to be involved in a collision than someone with a yellow car”. We would (hopefully) say well that could be because there are at least six and a half times more dark-haired than red-haired drivers, or six and a half times more grey cars than yellow cars. Why should drink related discussion any different?
We should surely insist on evidence-based discussion rather than on personal-prejudice-based discussion for something as important as this. We need to *know* if there is a causal relationship between drink-driving and collisions, and the age profile.
Charles, Cambridge
+6
Good point, Pat. In other words, they are not paying attention. As you may have seen me post before under HC126 a driver must be able to stop in the distance they can see to be clear, which also applies to the following distance. 30% of crashes are front to rear-end shunts. If a vehicle goes into the back of another then the driver of the former can be prosecuted under 126 combined with the third paragraph of the HC introduction. When people are accountable they pay more attention. And if they feel vulnerable they are likely to leave more space. So if RS offices and organisations pushed for prosecutions for front to rear end shunts then that would itself probably make a significant contribution to RS. If a man held a gun and it accidentally went off and it killed someone could he claim he was momentarily inattentive? But, that is exactly the sort of reasoning I have heard presented in court which has enabled a driver to get off a court case
Nigel ALBRIGHT
0
We have been discussing the increase in collisions at this time of year in the office for the past couple of weeks. In an absolutely non-scientific conclusion, we are of the opinion that many collisions, whether ‘slights’ or ‘serious’ are simply down to drivers being so pre-occupied with life that they are just not concentrating enough on the driving task itself.
Pat, Wales
+7