Young driver crashes kill or seriously hurt more than 23,000 in five years
More than 23,000 people have been killed or seriously injured in crashes involving a driver aged 17 to 24 in the past five years, police have warned.
Analysis of figures from the Department of Transport between 2021 and 2025 show that the accidents included 7,500 crashes where the driver was in that age bracket, 4,000 who were passengers being driven by a young driver, and 11,600 other road users including pedestrians and people in other cars.
Around a fifth of all road accidents that end with death or serious injury involve young drivers, defined as those age 17 to 24.
The data also suggest that young drivers are more likely to be involved in single vehicle crashes that lead to death or serious injury.
Nearly a third of motorists in that age bracket who were involved in collisions that saw someone killed or seriously injured (KSI) were in single vehicle accidents, compared to 23% of all drivers.
Weekends and evenings are thought to be high risk times, with more KSI young driver accidents happening on Saturdays, the National Police Chiefs’ Council said.
Rural roads were more dangerous than urban, with twice as many crashes of this kind taking place on country roads, and young people in rural areas twice as likely to be involved in such an accident – 87 per 100,000 people compared with 43 per 100,000 in urban areas.
Police are encouraging parents to continue to supervise their children’s driving in the months after they pass their test, as part of a wider national scheme called Operation Spotlight, timed to coincide with the return to school and university, darker nights and worsening weather.
Graduated driving licences are being introduced in Northern Ireland next month – including a six-month wait between getting a provisional licence and taking a practical test, restrictions on carrying passengers at night and displaying an R plate for two years – but the rest of the UK has no such plans.
Similar schemes in countries including Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland and parts of the US have reduced the number of crashes involving young drivers by between five and 40% depending on the rules in place.
Chief Superintendent Marc Clothier, Deputy National Coordinator in the National Roads Policing Coordination Centre, said: “Young drivers are disproportionately represented in serious and fatal collisions, despite driving substantially fewer miles than the average driver.
“Inexperience and the inability to assess risk are two of the most impactful factors in young driver safety on the roads and every decision taken when driving a vehicle has an impact so this is where parents and peers can be influential.
“Collectively we can support young people to use vehicles and the roads safely, maintaining their independence, helping them to develop their skills and ultimately reducing the risk of harm.”
Concerns were raised over the summer about social media posts appearing to celebrate reckless driving, including extreme speeds and driving the wrong way down major roads.
But Commander Kyle Gordon, National Coordinator at the National Roads Policing Coordination Centre, said the danger of young drivers is not a new phenomenon, and that the proportion of KSIs involving young drivers has dropped in the past 20 years as social media has emerged and expanded.
He said: “Let’s not kid ourselves, this is not a new phenomenon.
“Long before any of us had smartphones in our pockets, long before any of us knew what an Instagram post was, insurance companies absolutely understood just how dangerous young people could be on the road in the wrong circumstances.
“Young people, for all sorts of reasons, some that are nothing to do with themselves, just their biology and their makeup, are just more dangerous on the road until they understand that risk.”
He said Britons “for many years have been complacent around road harm”, even though the statistics show that the equivalent of one person every four minutes is hurt on UK roads.
“If this was any other area of public health policy, there would be a massive outcry, we would be being asked to do much, much more,” he said.
Dr Stephanie Alger, whose son Etienne was killed at the age of 18 when his car came off the road down an embankment in Derbyshire in June 2020, said it is important to remember that “behind every number is a tragic story”.
She had been concerned that her son was too young to drive at 17, and may take additional risks because he had Asperger’s, but also wanted him to be able to socialise.
He was driving in Dove Holes in Derbyshire at 66mph in wet weather and unknowingly had a nail in his tyre at the time of the crash.
The three passengers in the car survived, but Etienne, who preferred to be called Justin, suffered a catastrophic brain injury when the car hit a stone wall.
She and her husband had the haunting experience of sitting with her son for two hours after he was taken off life support before he died.
“I thought it was a bit like in the films where you take someone off life support and they die within five minutes,” she said.
But in fact the family had to endure “two hours of him sort of gasping for air, and asking the doctors to give him more morphine, which of course they’re not allowed to do, to end his life more quickly”.
“It was just horrendous to watch, and and he died, and we went home without our son,” she said.
The couple have set up a charity, Just.Bathe, which provides toiletry kits to allow parents to bathe their child one final time as they lie in hospital.
Behavioural scientist Dr Elizabeth Box, who has helped develop advice for parents with the charity IAM RoadSmart said: “Passing the driving test is an important milestone, but it isn’t the point at which learning ends.
“The first months of independent driving are a particularly important period, as young drivers are still developing the experience and judgment that help them recognise and manage risk.
“Parents and guardians can play an important role during this transition by helping young drivers manage their exposure to risk while that experience develops.
“In many countries, graduated driver licensing systems take a staged approach to driving independently, limiting exposure to higher-risk situations such as driving late at night or carrying young passengers while novice drivers gain experience.
“While we don’t currently have this kind of system in Great Britain, families can adopt some of the same principles themselves, agreeing rules about when young people drive and how many passengers they carry, and gradually increasing independence as their experience develops.”
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Our first road safety strategy in more than a decade is tackling the root causes of deaths and injuries on our roads, and we are consulting on minimum learning periods, lowering the alcohol limit for novice drivers, and cracking down on drug driving.”
Published: by Radio NewsHub