Younger drivers and road safety
Two things which happened in the last 48 hours have me thinking hard about road safety in general and younger drivers in particular.
The Chief Constable of Cumbria was reported in yesterday’s local papers as calling for restrictions on younger drivers, who are involved in a significant proportion of fatal accidents.
To underline the point, an elderly man is hospital with serious head injuries after being knocked down by a car on Monday night at the entrance to the road in Whitehaven where I live. Three men, all aged between 18 and 19, were later arrested in connection with the accident.
Almost every week I read in the local papers of another fatal accident on Cumbria’s roads, often on roads that I use almost every day, such as the A595. At one point earlier this year, there were two accidents only a couple of weeks apart, which claimed three lives, both on the A595 less than a mile from my home.
Of course, every time I read of yet another death on the A595 it rekindles my fury at the idiotic government decision to ignore the local community’s wishes by de-trunking this road south of Calderbridge. But the issue of road safety in Cumbria and elsewhere is far wider than one road. And I don’t think the issue of younger drivers can be ignored.
I gather that, of the people who have been killed on Cumbria’s roads this year so far, no fewer than 21 died as a result of accidents in which at least one driver was aged 16 to 20. The most recent figure on the Cumbria Safety Camera partnership website for the total number of deaths to date is 49, which appears to be slightly out of date, but it is clear that the number of fatalities involving young drivers is over a third and not far short of half the total. This is a higher proportion than you would expect if such drivers had the same risk as everyone else of being involved in fatal accidents.
Incidentally, the other figure which is being thrown around in this debate, that 25% of collisions in the county involve a driver under 25, is not dramatically worse than the proportion I would have expected given that all collisions involve two or more drivers. But the figures for deaths are both more convincing and much more serious. This in turn suggests that one of the issues is vehicle speed. A recent analysis of the causes of accidents found that speeding was a less common cause of road accidents in general than you might expect. But when there is an accident, the faster vehicles are travelling the greater the risk of serious injury or death.
It is very important that whatever measures are taken are not presented as an attack on young people, but as an attempt to save the lives of young people. Teenagers and drivers in their early twenties are not just disproportionately represented among the drivers of vehicles involved in fatal accidents, people in that age group are also disproportionately represented among the victims. One crash claimed six lives including a 19 year old driver, his 21 year old partner, their 4 month old baby son, his two sisters, and a man in another car. I point no fingers about who is to blame for that or any other individual accident, but the total number of people killed on Cumbria’s roads in accidents involving young drivers is too high not to be grounds for concern.
Two issues which many people get very upset about concern speed cameras and the systems which allow drivers to detect them. Ross Brewster wrote a very powerful blog piece a few weeks ago attacking those who drive too fast, and he also took aim at these detectors.
Where people buy a detector with the intention of driving faster when it isn’t warning of the presence of speed cameras, I think they deserve every word of Ross Brewster’s criticism. However, the figures suggest that many of the people who buy them do so for exactly the opposite reason - to ensure they slow down in areas with cameras. People who have detectors fitted can actually get lower insurance premiums because they have fewer accidents. That suggests that the sort of person who buys one is less likely to be a boy racer looking to drive faster and more likely to be a cautious person who doesn’t want to lose his licence and is taking steps to ensure he does not accidentally break the speed limit down where there are cameras. When detectors are fitted for this reason they slow people down at the camera sites - which will usually be in areas where speed is linked to a risk of accidents – and reduce the risk of accidents at those sites, which is exactly what the cameras were meant to achieve.
Speed cameras themselves are also controversial, but it is a myth that they are always unpopular. In my old ward of Sandridge there was a spontaneous public demonstration a couple of years ago, after a fatal accident, by local residents who wanted speed cameras in the village. Where cameras are located in an area where the speed limit changes a lot – and don’t let anyone tell you there are no such cameras – it brings the whole system into disrepute. But where safety cameras are located at a site where people have been killed, most people usually accept them. My regular journey to work used to take me through a former blackspot where there had been several fatalities. There are now clearly visible cameras at the site, plus plenty of equally visible speed limit signs, they do slow the traffic down, and there have been no more deaths.
Specific measures targeted at young drivers must be clear, easy to understand, and enforceable. I have my doubts that differential speed limits or curfews would work – some of these measures have been tried abroad and proved hard to enforce.
Limits on the engine capacity of cars which people under 21 or who have passed their test within a couple of years can drive may be another matter – anyone who insures a car has to tell the insurance company who will drive it. With the co-operation of the insurance companies, which it is in their financial interests to give, it should be possible to influence what sort of cars younger people are allowed to drive.
Perhaps we also need to see training in driving skills as something which comes after passing the test as well as before. Maybe there should be a mandatory driving safety course which all new drivers are required to attend between six months and a year after passing the L-test ? There are Advanced Driver Training courses run by ROSPA: I’ve never got round to taking one of these myself and am starting to think that perhaps I should. Maybe some incentives and more publicity for these courses would be a good idea – particularly if we can work with the youth media to persuade young men that being an “Advanced driver” is “cool.” It ought to be a lot easier to spin that one than to persuade them of many of the more ridiculous messages that the government spin machine puts out.
The above measures may have some impact on the behaviour of law-abiding people. For the small but dangerous minority of lunatics who regularly defy driving bans, drive without insurance or a licence, we have only one option. Make sure the courts put them inside before they put anyone else six feet under.
The Chief Constable of Cumbria was reported in yesterday’s local papers as calling for restrictions on younger drivers, who are involved in a significant proportion of fatal accidents.
To underline the point, an elderly man is hospital with serious head injuries after being knocked down by a car on Monday night at the entrance to the road in Whitehaven where I live. Three men, all aged between 18 and 19, were later arrested in connection with the accident.
Almost every week I read in the local papers of another fatal accident on Cumbria’s roads, often on roads that I use almost every day, such as the A595. At one point earlier this year, there were two accidents only a couple of weeks apart, which claimed three lives, both on the A595 less than a mile from my home.
Of course, every time I read of yet another death on the A595 it rekindles my fury at the idiotic government decision to ignore the local community’s wishes by de-trunking this road south of Calderbridge. But the issue of road safety in Cumbria and elsewhere is far wider than one road. And I don’t think the issue of younger drivers can be ignored.
I gather that, of the people who have been killed on Cumbria’s roads this year so far, no fewer than 21 died as a result of accidents in which at least one driver was aged 16 to 20. The most recent figure on the Cumbria Safety Camera partnership website for the total number of deaths to date is 49, which appears to be slightly out of date, but it is clear that the number of fatalities involving young drivers is over a third and not far short of half the total. This is a higher proportion than you would expect if such drivers had the same risk as everyone else of being involved in fatal accidents.
Incidentally, the other figure which is being thrown around in this debate, that 25% of collisions in the county involve a driver under 25, is not dramatically worse than the proportion I would have expected given that all collisions involve two or more drivers. But the figures for deaths are both more convincing and much more serious. This in turn suggests that one of the issues is vehicle speed. A recent analysis of the causes of accidents found that speeding was a less common cause of road accidents in general than you might expect. But when there is an accident, the faster vehicles are travelling the greater the risk of serious injury or death.
It is very important that whatever measures are taken are not presented as an attack on young people, but as an attempt to save the lives of young people. Teenagers and drivers in their early twenties are not just disproportionately represented among the drivers of vehicles involved in fatal accidents, people in that age group are also disproportionately represented among the victims. One crash claimed six lives including a 19 year old driver, his 21 year old partner, their 4 month old baby son, his two sisters, and a man in another car. I point no fingers about who is to blame for that or any other individual accident, but the total number of people killed on Cumbria’s roads in accidents involving young drivers is too high not to be grounds for concern.
Two issues which many people get very upset about concern speed cameras and the systems which allow drivers to detect them. Ross Brewster wrote a very powerful blog piece a few weeks ago attacking those who drive too fast, and he also took aim at these detectors.
Where people buy a detector with the intention of driving faster when it isn’t warning of the presence of speed cameras, I think they deserve every word of Ross Brewster’s criticism. However, the figures suggest that many of the people who buy them do so for exactly the opposite reason - to ensure they slow down in areas with cameras. People who have detectors fitted can actually get lower insurance premiums because they have fewer accidents. That suggests that the sort of person who buys one is less likely to be a boy racer looking to drive faster and more likely to be a cautious person who doesn’t want to lose his licence and is taking steps to ensure he does not accidentally break the speed limit down where there are cameras. When detectors are fitted for this reason they slow people down at the camera sites - which will usually be in areas where speed is linked to a risk of accidents – and reduce the risk of accidents at those sites, which is exactly what the cameras were meant to achieve.
Speed cameras themselves are also controversial, but it is a myth that they are always unpopular. In my old ward of Sandridge there was a spontaneous public demonstration a couple of years ago, after a fatal accident, by local residents who wanted speed cameras in the village. Where cameras are located in an area where the speed limit changes a lot – and don’t let anyone tell you there are no such cameras – it brings the whole system into disrepute. But where safety cameras are located at a site where people have been killed, most people usually accept them. My regular journey to work used to take me through a former blackspot where there had been several fatalities. There are now clearly visible cameras at the site, plus plenty of equally visible speed limit signs, they do slow the traffic down, and there have been no more deaths.
Specific measures targeted at young drivers must be clear, easy to understand, and enforceable. I have my doubts that differential speed limits or curfews would work – some of these measures have been tried abroad and proved hard to enforce.
Limits on the engine capacity of cars which people under 21 or who have passed their test within a couple of years can drive may be another matter – anyone who insures a car has to tell the insurance company who will drive it. With the co-operation of the insurance companies, which it is in their financial interests to give, it should be possible to influence what sort of cars younger people are allowed to drive.
Perhaps we also need to see training in driving skills as something which comes after passing the test as well as before. Maybe there should be a mandatory driving safety course which all new drivers are required to attend between six months and a year after passing the L-test ? There are Advanced Driver Training courses run by ROSPA: I’ve never got round to taking one of these myself and am starting to think that perhaps I should. Maybe some incentives and more publicity for these courses would be a good idea – particularly if we can work with the youth media to persuade young men that being an “Advanced driver” is “cool.” It ought to be a lot easier to spin that one than to persuade them of many of the more ridiculous messages that the government spin machine puts out.
The above measures may have some impact on the behaviour of law-abiding people. For the small but dangerous minority of lunatics who regularly defy driving bans, drive without insurance or a licence, we have only one option. Make sure the courts put them inside before they put anyone else six feet under.
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James