Young drivers
The single greatest risk faced by young people is the road.
Driving is an essential life skill but all too often our young drivers are poorly educated to cope with the real risks which face them as they take to the road. They are twice as likely to be involved in a crash as drivers in their mid twenties or older. In 2005 almost 1200 young drivers were killed or seriously injured on UK roads – that is more than three every day.
RoadSafe encourages those responsible for educating the young to realise their role in reducing death and injury among young people aged 17 to 25 through championing programmes to reduce risky riding and driving. RoadSafe is building an alliance of organisations to:
- Promote a more structured approach to learning to drive.
- Promote greater parental involvement.
- Promote the introduction of road user education into the secondary school curriculum.
- Raise the standards of driver training.
In September RoadSafe will launch a new campaign to engage parents to help them make their children better drivers.
Essential advice about learning to drive can be found on the Direct Gov website
Other websites
IAM Motoring Trust has produced 'Children and road safety: a guide for parents' . It identifies where and when children in five distinct age groups are at most risk on the road, and offers advice on what parents can do to minimise the risk.
