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    INTRODUCTION

    The ABI (Association of British Insurers) represents the collective interests of the

    UKs insurance industry, around 400 member companies. The ABI is committed to

    improving Britains road safety record, and in particular that of young drivers. In2006, we published Young Drivers: Reducing Death on the Roads Four Actions to

    Save Lives, outlining the main reasons why young drivers have a poor road safety

    record and putting forward four proposals to tackle those reasons. This paper

    provides new evidence from the motor insurance market demonstrating that the

    problem persists, and supporting our proposals for reform.

    THE PROBLEM

    Our 2006 paper revealed that young drivers were more than twice as likely as other

    drivers to make an insurance claim. Our new evidence confirms this finding.Figure 1, showing the claim rate, or the percentage of policies for which a claim is

    made, demonstrates that an 18 year-old is twice as likely to make a claim as

    someone in their fifties.

    Figu re 1 : Cla im r a te by age

    0%

    5%

    10%

    15%

    20%

    25%

    30%

    18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60

    Age

    Claimr

    ate

    Source: ABI (based on analysis of 8.5 million claims in 2005 and 2006)

    For the first time we can also show that a young driver is more likely to be at fault in

    a collision for which they make a claim than another driver. Figure 2, showing the

    claim rate where the driver was at fault, demonstrates that an 18 year old driver is

    almost three times as likely to cause a collision than a driver in their fifties.

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    Figu re 2 : Cla im ra te w here d r i ve r caused the co l l i si on

    0%

    2%

    4%

    6%

    8%

    10%

    12%

    14%

    16%

    18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60

    Age

    Claimr

    ate

    Source: ABI

    WHY DO YOUNG DRIVERS HAVE A POOR SAFETY RECORD?

    In our 2006 paper we identified the main reasons why young drivers have a poor

    road safety record: a lack of road experience and an inclination to take unnecessary

    risks.

    Inexperience and attitude

    Some have argued that young drivers have a worse collision rate because a high

    proportion of them do not obey the law. Whilst this may be part of the problem, our

    new evidence shows that even when young drivers take the same unnecessary

    risks as other drivers, such as those that result in speeding convictions, they are

    more likely to cause a collision. Figure 3 demonstrates that a young driver with one

    speeding conviction is more likely to make a claim than another driver with one

    conviction.

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    Figu re 3 : Cla im ra te w here d r i ve r has one speed ing conv ic t i on

    0%

    5%

    10%

    15%

    20%

    25%

    30%

    35%

    18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60

    Age

    Claimr

    ate

    Source: ABI

    Inexperience and age

    Our evidence shows that inexperience is much more of a problem for young novice

    drivers than for other novice drivers. Figure 4 shows, for example, that an 18 year

    old novice driver with up to one years driving experience is almost 50% more likely

    to make a claim than a novice driver in their thirties.

    Figu re 4 : Cla im ra te fo r nov i ce d r i ve rs w i th l ess than one yea r ' s d r i v ing

    exper ience

    0%

    5%

    10%

    15%

    20%

    25%

    30%

    35%

    18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

    Age

    ClaimR

    ate

    Source: ABI

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    Our evidence also shows that inexperience is a particular problem for young drivers

    in their first year of driving. Figure 5 shows that the fall in the claim rate in the first

    and second year of driving decreases dramatically with age. For example, Driver A

    who has less than one years experience when 18 is 34% less likely to make a claim

    when they are 19, and 45% less likely to make a claim when aged 20. By contrast,Driver B who has less than one years experience when 20 is only 18% less likely to

    make a claim when they are 21, and only 22% less likely to make a claim when

    aged 22.

    Figu re 5 : Cla im ra te by l eve l o f d r i v ing exper ience

    0%

    5%

    10%

    15%

    20%

    25%

    30%

    18 19 20 21 22 - 25 26 - 30

    Age

    Claimr

    ate

    Less than 1 year (novice) 1-2 years 2-3 years

    Source: ABI

    IMPROVING THE SAFETY RECORD OF YOUNG DRIVERS

    Tackling inexperience

    Young drivers are more at risk even when committing the same offences as other

    drivers, so putting more resources into enforcing speed restrictions and other road

    laws, while sensible, will not tackle the heart of the problem facing young drivers.

    The evidence presented in this paper demonstrates that it is the inexperience of the

    young driver group as a whole that is affecting their road safety record.

    In our 2006 paper, we looked at experience in other parts of the world in reducing

    the collision rates of young drivers, and put forward four proposals for the UK:

    a 12-month minimum learning period;

    a structured learning programme for all new drivers;

    actions to encourage young drivers to carry fewer passengers;

    actions to encourage fewer night-time journeys.

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    A partnership between the public and private sectors is needed to deliver these

    proposals; and progress has been made on three of the four proposals. In

    response to the Transport Committees inquiry into novice drivers in 2007, the

    Government promised The forthcoming consultation document on reform of driver

    training and testingwill include proposals for structuring learning to drive in thecontext of a new structured syllabus; and will discuss whether this syllabus needs to

    be reinforced by a mandatory minimum learning period.1 In addition, several

    insurers now offer products that offer lower premiums to customers but with a higher

    rate for driving at night.

    However, more remains to be done. In particular, it will be important to help protect

    young novice drivers by limiting the number of passengers they can carry in the first

    six months of driving.

    Encouraging young drivers to carry fewer passengers

    The presence of friends in their car can both distract young drivers and encourage

    them to drive in a more risky way. In our 2006 paper, we cited evidence

    demonstrating that the collision rate for young drivers increases with each additional

    passenger carried: compared with driving alone, the risk of a fatal collision for young

    drivers is 39% higher with one passenger, 85% higher with two, and 182% higher

    with three or more.2

    Moreover, collisions involving young drivers tend to involve more injured

    passengers. Figures Six and Seven show that the average number of injured

    passengers falls as the driver gets older. For every ten collisions where a driver

    aged 17-19 is killed, eight passengers will be killed or injured for male drivers, sevenfor female drivers. By contrast, for every ten collisions where a driver aged over

    thirty is killed, between three and four passengers will be killed or injured for male

    drivers, two for female drivers.3

    1Transport Committee, Novice Drivers: Government Response to the Committees Seventh Report of Session

    2006-07, October 2007.2

    Chen, L.H., Baker, S.P., et al, Carrying Passengers as a risk factor for crashes fatal to 16- and 17-year old drivers,

    Jama 283 C12, 20003

    Broughton, J, Buckle, G Monitoring progress towards the 2010 casualty reduction target 2005 data, TransportResearch Laboratory 2007

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    Figu re 6 : Car passenger casua l t i es pe r m a le d r i ve r

    0.0

    0.1

    0.2

    0.3

    0.4

    0.5

    0.6

    0.7

    0.8

    0.9

    17-19 20-22 23-26 27-30 31-99

    Driver age

    Carpassengercausalties

    Fatal Serious Slight Any NoneDriver's injuries were:

    Source: Transport Research Laboratory4

    Figur e 7 : Car passenger casua l t ies per fem ale dr iv er

    0.0

    0.1

    0.2

    0.3

    0.4

    0.5

    0.6

    0.7

    0.8

    17-19 20-22 23-26 27-30 31-99

    Driver age

    Carpassengercausalties

    Fatal Serious Slight Any NoneDriver's injuries were:

    Source: Transport Research Laboratory5

    A structured learning programme could include a minimum amount of experience of

    driving in different road, weather and traffic conditions. However, it would be difficult

    to introduce an element of training in carrying passengers. For this reason, post-test

    measures are common across the world: in the US, Australia and New Zealand,

    young drivers can carry no or a limited number of passengers for 6-12 months after

    4Broughton, J, Buckle, G Monitoring progress towards the 2010 casualty reduction target 2005 data, Transport

    Research Laboratory 2007.5Ibid.

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    passing their test. Data from the US shows that, on average, a reduction of 25% in

    the number of crashes was achieved over a ten-year period following the

    implementation of various post-test measures, predominantly focusing on restricting

    the number of passengers (Table 1). An average of 37% fatal crash reduction was

    achieved during the same period where restrictions on the number of passengerswas implemented.

    Tab le 1 : Crash reduc t ion w here pos t - t es t m easures i n p lace

    US/ Canadian Stat e Crash reduc t ion

    British Columbia 16%

    California 23%

    Georgia 30%

    Florida 9%

    Maryland 21%

    Michigan 38%

    North Carolina 39%

    Nova Scotia 29%

    Ohio 23%

    Pennsylvania 28%

    Average 25%

    Source: Ferguson International LLC

    CONCLUSION

    In light of the success of post-test measures in other countries, the ABI recommend

    that drivers under 20 should be allowed to carry no more than one teenage

    passenger for six months after passing their test. We call on the Government to

    implement this measure in addition to a structured learning programme and a

    minimum learning period, in order to reduce the unacceptably high number of young

    people being killed or seriously injured on our roads each year.