The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has been spearheading a campaign to improve the road safety of young drivers. We therefore welcomed the Transport Select Committee's announcement on 2 November that it is launching an inquiry into novice drivers.

  Despite an overall reduction in the number of deaths and serious injuries on UK roads in recent years, the proportion of young people affected continues to rise. Crucially, far too many young drivers are dying on our roads in accidents that can be prevented. Although all stakeholders have a role in helping to incentivise safer driving, they cannot affect the same step-change improvements in road safety that the Government can do through decisive action.

  Accordingly, in partnership with Brake, the Make Roads Safe Campaign, the Parliamentary Advisory Committee for Transport Safety, the RAC Foundation and RoadSafe, the ABI has developed a set of proposals to tackle the "young driver problem". We are calling on the Government to introduce:

—  a minimum learning period before the driving test, enabling drivers to undertake supervised practice without an incentive to rush to take the practical test;

—  a structured learning programme, covering the different road and traffic conditions learner drivers should experience before taking the test; and

—  measures for young drivers to carry fewer passengers.

  Insurers are already taking steps to encourage young drivers to take more care on the road. Recognising that young drivers double their risk of death or serious injury when driving at night, some insurers are offering lower premiums to those who avoid the roads during hours of darkness. Safer driving more generally is also encouraged through "no claims" bonuses.

  We have drawn on the experience and success of worldwide efforts to reduce the accident rates of young drivers to suggest measures we believe would have a real impact in the UK. The attached policy paper provides more information.

  With four people killed or seriously injured in accidnts involving young drivers every day, the time to take action is now.

1.  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.1  Young drivers are far more likely to be involved in serious road accidents than other motorists:

—  in 2005, almost 1,200 drivers aged 17-19 were killed or seriously injured on UK roads—more than three every day;[28]

—  one in eight driving licence holders is aged under 25, yet one in three drivers who die is under 25[29], and almost one in two drivers killed at night is under 25;[30] and

—  almost one in four passengers killed or seriously injured was travelling with a young driver at the time[31]. Not only do a large number of passenger fatalities occur in accidents involving young drivers, but the vast majority of these passengers are of a similarly young age: almost two-thirds of passengers killed in accidents involving 17-18 year-old drivers are 17-18 years old themselves.[32]

  1.2  The ABI is therefore calling on the Government to introduce the following measures:

—  a minimum learning period before the driving test, enabling drivers to undertake supervised practice without an incentive to rush to take the practical test;

—  a structured learning programme, covering the different road and traffic conditions learner drivers should experience before taking the practical test; and

—  restrictions on the number of passengers young drivers can carry.

  1.3  The insurance industry is already playing its part in reducing young driver accidents: some insurers offer lower premiums to young drivers who make fewer journeys at night (when the risk of their causing an accident involving death or serious injury is particularly high); many offer significant premium discounts to novice drivers participating in the Pass Plus Scheme, which provides experience of different road conditions; and safer driving is incentivised by insurers more generally through no claims' bonuses and "accelerated" no-claims bonuses (where drivers can earn bonuses in 10 months rather than 12). However, further progress could be made through targeted Government advertising campaigns, highlighting the risks to young drivers and their passengers of driving at night.

2.  INTRODUCTION

  2.1  The ABI welcomes the Transport Committee's inquiry into novice drivers. While the greater risk that novice drivers face on the road is generally acknowledged, difficulties in reaching a consensus about what actions would be appropriate have prevented any serious reform of novice driver licensing in the UK to date.

  2.2  Novice drivers generally have a higher accident rate than more experienced drivers, however, it is young drivers particularly who are most at risk.[33]

  2.3  The ABI has undertaken research into the issue of road safety of young novice drivers:

—  Young Drivers: Reducing Death on the Roads, (September 2006), sets out four proposals to improve the safety record of young drivers. These were endorsed by a number of road safety and motoring organisations: Brake, the FIA Foundation (the Make Roads Safe campaign), the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, the RAC Foundation, and RoadSafe.

—  Young Drivers: Improving their Safety Record is the technical paper on which the policy paper is based (September 2006).

—  Pass Plus: Ten Years On sets out the results of new research by the ABI into the effect of Pass Plus on driving standards and road safety. It suggests that Pass Plus drivers have only a marginally lower accident rate than drivers who do not participate in the scheme.

3.  THE EXTENT OF THE YOUNG DRIVER PROBLEM

  3.1  The proportion of young drivers killed or seriously injured on our roads has increased in recent years, while the overall number of deaths and serious injuries has fallen.[34]

  3.2  Insurance industry data confirms the higher casualty rate of young drivers compared to more experienced drivers:

—  17-20 year-old male drivers are over six times more likely to be injured while driving than more experienced drivers, and almost ten times more likely to be killed or seriously injured.[35]

—  27% of 17-19 year-old males are involved in a road accident as a driver in their first year of driving; this compares to 9% of 30-39 year-old novice male drivers.[36]

—  17-18 year-old male drivers are more than twice as likely to have an insurance claim made against them as 30-59 year-old drivers, and the average value of each of those claims is three times higher than those made against older drivers (£4,473 compared with £1,459). Similarly, 17-19 year-old females are a third more likely than 30-59 year-old women to have a claim made against them, and the average value of each claim is £2,734 compared to £1,260 for 30-59 year-olds.[37]

4.  THE REASONS BEHIND THE YOUNG DRIVER PROBLEM

  4.1  There are three key skills to safe driving:[38]

—  Technical skills: mastering the skills of vehicle handling and position.

—  Road awareness: learning the formal and informal rules that enable a driver to read the road and anticipate hazards.

—  Attitude to the road: the manner in which the car is driven.

  4.2  Young drivers generally have relatively good vehicle-control skills, due in part to their faster reaction times. But they often lack road awareness and generally have a poor attitude to the road.

Inexperience leads to accidents

  4.3  Many young drivers have a poor appreciation of road and vehicle conditions and the driving behaviour of others, and are unable to adapt their driving style where necessary. Accordingly, they often overestimate their ability and safety on the road. A higher proportion of young driver accidents occur at night, when driving at speed and round bends.

  4.4  Driving during hours of darkness requires different skills from driving during daylight hours. Some young drivers pass their test without having yet mastered these different skills. Consequently, over 50% of accidents involving young male drivers that result in death or serious injury occur at night. This compares to 35% of accidents involving older drivers.

  4.5  Driving too fast for the road conditions is another common problem for young drivers. For every 1% increase in speed, the likelihood of being involved in an accident rises by 8%;[39] young people drive on average 11% faster than older drivers. Inappropriate speed contributes to approximately one-third of young driver accidents, compared to approximately one-eighth of accidents involving 30-59 year-old drivers.

  4.6  Many young drivers will also have no experience of driving a fully-loaded vehicle and little understanding of the different handling this requires.

  4.7  Further difficulties are experienced negotiating bends in the road: young drivers have approximately twice as many of their accidents driving round a bend compared to older drivers.

The impact of a poor attitude to the road

  4.8  Many young drivers derive personal identity from driving, and are more inclined than older people to drive for pleasure or thrills. In contrast to older drivers, young people consider themselves to be relatively intolerant, inconsiderate, and impatient drivers.[40]

  4.9  The poor attitude of some young drivers is shown by their willingness to break both formal and informal rules of the road: young drivers commit the highest number of Highway Code violations.[41] Committing violations is statistically linked to a higher probability of being involved in an accident: drivers admitting to frequently committing violations are 75% more likely to be involved in an accident that is their fault than those who rarely commit any.[42]

  4.10  Poor attitudes also lead to anti-social driving behaviour, such as competitive driving and driving irresponsibly. 17-18 year-old drivers are far more likely than others to indulge in competitive driving on the roads than older drivers, resulting in 70% more of their accidents occurring following competition with other road users than 30-59 year-olds.

  4.11  Peer pressure can encourage young drivers to drive in a more risky way. The accident risk for young drivers increases with each additional passenger carried, and is nearly three times higher when carrying three passengers than when driving alone, as demonstrated in Chart 3:[43]

5.  POLICY PROPOSALS

  5.1  The young driver problem is not unique to the UK. Other countries have already introduced a range of measures to tackle the problem. The ABI has therefore drawn on the experience and success of worldwide efforts to reduce the accident rates of young drivers to evaluate which measures would be most appropriate for the UK. In tackling inexperience and attitude, we have considered a combination of pre- and post-test measures.

Pre-test measures

A minimum learning period

  5.2  The current UK licensing system allows a person to drive unaccompanied as soon as they pass the practical driving test. It is unsurprising that many young people try to pass it as quickly as they can: each year, 50,000 17 year-olds in the UK pass their driving test with less than six months driving experience.[44] If the learning period takes place during the spring and summer months, many of these drivers may obtain a full licence having never driven in ice or snow, or even in the dark.

  5.3  Research undertaken in 1997 found that male drivers who took longer to learn to drive had significantly fewer accidents than drivers who completed their training in just a few months. A similar relationship was found for male drivers who drove higher mileages while learning.[45]

  5.4  More needs to be done, therefore, to incentivise young drivers to accumulate greater driving experience before taking the practical test. A minimum learning period of twelve months is our preferred proposal.

  5.5  Minimum learning periods have been successful in Sweden, where they have been in place for more than a decade. They have been highly effective in increasing the amount of pre-test experience gained by young drivers, and reducing their accident rates. The amount of pre-test experience obtained by young drivers in Sweden has more than trebled since a minimum learning period was introduced, resulting in 40% fewer accidents.

  5.6  A further benefit of a minimum learning period in the UK context would be the new driver's additional maturity when taking the test; the immaturity of young drivers has a negative effect on their driving behaviour. The UK is one of only five EU member states that allows young people to obtain a full driving licence before the age of 18. The Department for Transport estimates that if the minimum driving age were raised to 18, the additional year of maturity would result in up to 1,000 fewer deaths and serious injuries on UK roads each year.[46]

A structured learning programme

  5.7  To ensure that all new drivers have experience of a wide range of road and traffic conditions, the ABI advocates the introduction of a structured learning programme. Many licensing systems around the world incorporate a logbook into the learning process, outlining a syllabus that drivers need to complete before taking the test (for example, it could include requirements to drive at night and in bad weather), and allowing a driver's progress to be monitored. By gaining a wider driving experience, the driver should be better prepared for solo driving after passing the test.

  5.8  Recent research has found that increasing the length of the learning period and enforcing minimum levels of driving practice have significantly reduced the number of novice driver accident rates in the United States.[47]

Post-test measures

Actions to encourage young drivers to make fewer night-time journeys

  5.9  In recognition of the higher accident rates of young drivers using the roads during hours of darkness, a number of insurers have taken steps to encourage young drivers to make fewer night-time journeys.

  5.10  In October 2006, Norwich Union launched "Pay As You Drive"TM insurance for drivers aged 18-23. To encourage young drivers to leave their vehicles at home at night, policyholders are charged up to 20 times more per mile driven during the high-risk accident time between 11.00 pm to 6.00 am than at other lower-risk times of the day. The pilot, launched in January 2005, saw the number of accidents among young drivers drop by 20%.

  5.11  More Th>n's "DriveTime" policy incentivises young drivers to avoid the roads at night. 18-25 year-olds choosing to take advantage of this policy receive significant discounts compared with the standard premium, but pay additional premiums of £25 each time they drive between 11.00 pm to 6.00 am.

  5.12  Of course, not all young drivers will take out these types of policies. Additional measures are therefore needed. If the kinds of changes the ABI is advocating are made to the licensing and training regimes for the high risk categories of drivers, there will be more opportunities for the insurance industry to look at ways of linking those changes to the way insurance products are structured and priced.

  5.13  Additional non-insurance measures should also be considered, such as a Government advertising campaign highlighting the risks of driving at night.

Actions to encourage young drivers to carry fewer passengers

  5.14  Some young drivers feel pressure to take risks when they are carrying other young people in their car. An alarming number of accidents involving young drivers also results in death or injury of their young passengers.

  5.15  Graduated licensing systems, which aim to protect young drivers from high risk situations while they build up driving experience, are in place in countries including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Although details of the systems differ between countries, passenger restrictions are common.

  5.16  An evaluation of passenger restrictions placed on new drivers in California found there had been a 20% reduction in the number of fatal and serious injury accidents involving the youngest drivers.[48]

  5.17  Other options for encouraging young drivers to carry fewer passengers are available, including a targeted advertising campaign to highlight the higher accident risk when young drivers carry passengers, and/or graded penalties for young drivers if they are responsible for an accident while carrying passengers.

6.  CONCLUSION

  6.1  The ABI recognises that some aspects of our proposals would have implications for the mobility of some novice drivers who are not high risk. But this may be a small price to pay if we can reduce the number of young people killed or injured on UK roads. Driving gives people mobility, but a balance needs to be struck between mobility and road safety.

  6.2  The ABI recognises that many stakeholders have a role in helping to incentivise safe driving. However, they cannot effect the same step-change in improvements in road safety that the Government can through decisive action and legislation. The Transport Committee inquiry provides an excellent opportunity to influence Government to take action to significantly reduce the needless loss of life that occurs everyday on our roads.

18 December 2006

29   Brake, Racing and risk-taking by young drivers plagues UK roads and must be stopped through urgent Government action, finds research launched today, press release, November 2006 Back

30   Norwich Union, Norwich Union launches innovative "pay as you drive"TM insurance with prices from 1p per mile, press release, October 2006. Back

31   ABI estimate, derived from Department for Transport accident statistics. Back

32   Department for Transport accident statistics. Back

33   Mayhew, D, Simpson, H, and Foss, R, Graduated driver licensing: what works? AJPM, 2005. Back

34   ABI estimate, derived from Department for Transport accident statistics. Back

35   ABI estimate, derived from Department for Transport accident statistics and UN population data. Back

36   ABI estimate, derived from Department for Transport accident statistics. Back

37   ABI estimate, derived from a survey of its members. Back

38   Parker, D, and Stradling, S, Influencing driver attitudes and behaviour, Department for Transport, 2001. Back

39   Novice drivers' safety (No. 02), 2000. Back

40   Stradling, Dr S, & Meadows, Dr M, Young Driver Attitudes, 2000. Back

41   Stradling, S, Meadows, M, Young Driver Attitudes, 2000. Back

42   Forsyth, E, Maycock, G, Cohort Study of learner and novice drivers Part 4: Novice driver accidents in relation to methods of learning to drive, performance in the driving test and self assessed driving ability and behaviour, Transport Research Laboratory TRL, 1997. Back

43   Chen, L H, Baker, S P, et al, "Carrying passengers as a risk for accidents fatal to 16- and 17- year-olds", Jama 283. Back

44   ABI estimate, derived from Driving Standards Agency statistics. Back

45   Forsyth, E, Maycock, G, Cohort study of learner and novice drivers Part 4: Novice driver accidents in relation to methods of learning to drive, performance in the driving test, and self assessed driving ability and behaviour, Transport Research Laboratory, TRL Report 275, 1997. Back

46   Department for Transport, Introducing a more structured approach to learning to drive-consultation, 2001. Back

47   McKnight, A, Peck, R, and Foss, R, Graduated driver licensing: what works? AJPM, 2005. Back

48   Mayhew, D, 2002. Back