Start them young for safer driving
Booking that first driving lesson is a rite of passage for many teenagers, but it’s also an experience that can fill parents with dread. Here’s how to help them stay safer on the roads, says motoring editor Ginny Buckley.
Young drivers between 17 and 19 make up just 1.5% of all UK licence holders, yet they’re involved in almost one in 10 accidents – and a quarter of drivers under the age of 24 will have an accident within two years of passing their test. But before you cancel your offspring’s driving lessons and resign yourself to being their personal taxi driver, here’s how to help keep them safe on the road…
‘The earlier you start learning to drive the better,’ says 26-year-old rally driver Jade Paveley. Having started karting competitively at 15, Jade was racing for Mazda by the time she was 17. She believes it’s important for youngsters to get as much experience and confidence as they can before they begin lessons, and recommends indoor karting as a way to help them improve their reactions and understand changing conditions. This is backed up by research from Scandinavia, which showed that pre-17 driving education could reduce accident rates by as much as 40%.
Children as young as 10 can have a driving lesson (£36.99 for 30min) at Young Driver, the UK’S largest pre-17 driving school. It’s now clocked up more than 750,000 lessons since it launched, and operates at more than 70 sites across the UK, offering young people the chance to drive a dual-controlled Vauxhall Corsa with a fully qualified driving instructor. Realistic road systems are set up at each venue, to allow drivers to experience everything from roundabouts to traffic lights and junctions, as well as special areas where they can practise manoeuvres such as parking and steering.
Young Driver’s research shows that extending the time period over which youngsters learn creates neural pathways in the brain to help the mechanical elements of driving become more automatic – this then gives them more head space to consider the wider dangers and risks when they’re on the road. Find out more at youngdriver.eu.