A new report calls for more support for schools and more parental involvement to help address the issue of crashes and casualties caused by young drivers.
The report by the Nottinghamshire Road Safety Partnership is based on an online survey looking at the behaviour of young drivers and their passengers.
The survey was designed to capture local and up to date self-reports, in order to inform the development of upcoming initiatives to target this high risk group.
More than 200 post-16 students from 11 colleges across the city and county completed the survey. Responses were encouraged by a prize draw to win an iPad Air worth £400.
70% of respondents said they have no parental restrictions placed on their driving at all.
Passengers were more willing to admit experiencing risky behaviour when in a car driven by another young person, than drivers themselves.
Over a third of respondents who were passengers reported feeling uneasy, with 23% feeling worried, when being driven by a young driver. More than 20% were unsure whether they would be able to speak up if they felt scared by a friend’s driving.
63% of male respondents and more than 50% of all respondents said they were more skillful at driving than their peers. And 86% of male and 63% of female respondents said they knew exactly what risks they could take when overtaking.
When asked about the causes of young driver crashes, one of the most common responses was over confidence. When asked what they thought would help to prevent crashes, the two main responses related to improved education and driver training (potentially through schools) and increased enforcement and restrictions on young drivers.
The survey report concludes that the Nottinghamshire Road Safety Partnership should aim to supply the education in schools that young drivers are asking for, and that parental restrictions of young drivers should be encouraged.
For more information and/or a copy of the report contact Neil Snow.
Good idea in principle. Problem is that most drivers, if spot tested today, would fail their standard driving test and, therefore, are below the basic level of safety for driving on the roads. By inference it means that most parents are not good role models, and some a long way off it. And yet these are the very ones which young growing people will have spent maybe around 14 years or so viewing their driving and road behaviour, and also the ones who will be supervising drivers, and you have probably got to the root of the issue. It’s then a case of the bad leading the unknowing.
Nigel Albright
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Interesting report overall. My view is that young drivers, their passengers and families would all benefit from a telematics device being fitted to their vehicles. The benefits may include Erratic Driver notifications to parents via text as well as lower cost insurance.
Stuart Millward Satsafe UK
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Of course road safety should be on the national curriculum, for we are all road users in one form or another. But, and a very big but, is that governments (not just this party) do not want to be seen as encouraging travel by car.
Terry Hudson
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If you wish to email me Eric, I will very happily send you a copy of the full report.
Neil Snow, Nottingham City Council
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Neil
I agree with you. The problem here is that we don’t know what question was asked, or what possible responses were offered – and both are crucial to understand the issue.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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Hi Eric,
Whilst I agree with the simple principal that over-confidence in driving is bad and confidence is good, the important thing here is that young drivers can accurately self-evaluate and have an accurate judgement of their own skill level and abilities. It has long been shown in the literature that young drivers have a tendancy to over rate their own skill levels. The belief about overtaking expressed here only adds weight to what is already known. Based on my own experience in driver training I can tell you that it is highly unlikely that 86% of the young male drivers surveyed are as good at overtaking as they appear to think they are. This particular result is also a replication of the results found by Gloucestershire Road Safety Partnership recently.
Neil Snow, Nottingham City Council
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“And 86% of male and 63% of female respondents said they knew exactly what risks they could take when overtaking.” The way it is written suggests this is deemed a bad thing.
Would someone care to suggest what the correct answer to this implied question would be (presumably yes/no?). Over-confidence in driving is bad, but confidence is good.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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