16 to 19-year-olds: driving into danger

More than 4,500 young people aged 16 to 19 are killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads each year.

• This is the age when children start to ride mopeds and motorcycles and learn to drive.
• Inexperience and a ‘macho’ attitude to safety combine to make them by far the highest risk age group – drivers and car passengers account for just over half of all under-19 road accident casualties.
• Young men are twice as likely as young women to be killed or injured as a driver.

Which journeys carry most risk?

Traveling by car overtakes walking as the main means of getting about for 16 to 19-year-olds.

• 45 per cent of all their journeys are made by car and more than 70 per cent of road deaths in this age group are car drivers and passengers.
• More than half of the drivers killed are driving too fast, typically at night on a rural road.
• Less than 2 per cent of all their journeys are made on a moped or motorcycle, but nearly 30 per cent of all fatal and serious injury accidents in this age group are to riders.
• 16-year-olds in their first year of riding mopeds are particularly vulnerable.
  
  

When do accidents happen?

The pattern of risk changes between winter and summer and between weekdays and weekends.

• Weekday casualties peak during commuting hours.
• Equal numbers of passengers and car drivers are killed or seriously injured.
• Weekend journeys in the late evening and early morning, typically returning from social activity, carry the highest risk.
  
  

How can you help?

Your responsibility to make sure that your children are safe on the roads doesn’t stop when they
reach the age of 16.

Walking safely

• Remind them that walking home after a party or a night out in the pub can be very risky if they ignore the basic rules of crossing roads carefully.
• Offer to be a taxi service if you feel they could be at risk walking home.
  

Riding safely

• Arrange for proper training before your children ride a moped or motorcycle – at age 16 as many moped riders are killed or injured as car passengers.
  

Motoring safely

• Continue to teach good driving by example: always wear a seat belt, stick to the speed limits and never drink and drive.
• Use a professional instructor to teach your children to drive, and help them to be safer drivers by giving them extra practice in the family car.
• Encourage them to continue training after they pass the test, through the Pass Plus scheme. Go to www.passplus.org.uk
• Don’t be afraid to step in firmly if you are worried about how their friends behave behind the wheel.
• Offer to be a taxi service or to pay for a taxi if you are worried about who may be driving your children home.