Young drivers:

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• Young drivers
• the road to safety

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Objective

• An up- to-date overview
• problem characteristics,
• contributing factors
• effective solutions
• Appealing to and inspiring for policymakers in
  all OECD countries
• Countries differ in history, culture,
  motorization level, economy no one size fits
  all
• Does create a feel of urgency and reasons for
  action
• Discusses implementation strategies

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Who are we?

• A group of researchers and policymakers from most
  OECD countries
• Inspired by
• many good review studies
• (limited) databases from WHO, IRTAD
• additional analyses from individual countries
• And several consultation rounds
• experts and policymakers (all over the world)

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What do you find in the report?

• Accident frequency and characteristics for OECD
  countries
• Economic costs
• Forecasted future levels of Young Driver risk
• Literature on contributing factors effective
  countermeasures
• Promising new measures
• Views on implementation strategy

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The distribution of death causes byage in OECD
countries
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The distribution of death causes byage in OECD
countries
TRAFFIC Single greatest killer of youngsters
15- 24 In OECD 25.000 per year
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Magnitude, costs and forecast

• Young drivers 27 of all driver fatalities but
  are only 10 of the population in OECD countries
• For each killed young driver about 1.3 others
  die
• Costs of fatalities amount e.g in US to 40.8
  billion (2002) for 15-20 yr old crashes
  (including passengers)
• Young driver fatalities worldwide will increase
  due to economic growth and motorization in
  developing countries

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The Problem, Writ Large
Driver Crash Involvement per Million Miles
Travelled, by Driver Age US, 2001-2002
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The Circumstances Time of Day

• 18-25 Year-Olds Killed in Road Crashes, by Hour
  and Day
• European Union 15 (minus Germany), 2004

Source EU
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Factors behind the problem

• Immaturity
• Age
• Biological brain development limitations
• Inexperience
• Poor higher order skills
• Unsufficient automation
• Gender
• High risk groups (young male drivers)
• Young females benefit from safety improvements
• Young males do not
• Risk aggravating factors
• Speed, young passengers, night driving, alcohol
  and drugs
• High risk of combined use of illicit drugs
  alcohol

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High benefits from general road safety

• Safe countries have safe young drivers
• Strict drink and drug-driving laws and enforcement

• Seatbelt
• Vehicle engineering

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Infrastructure
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Does this help?
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Targeted measures are also necessary

• Licensing age raise age for solo driving
• Delay licensing
• Avoid migration to more unsafe motorized two-
  wheelers

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Priority measures 1 more drivingexperience
before solo driving

• Pre-license training with higher levels of
  practice under supervised driving conditions
• Indications are increasing accompanied practice
  from current levels
• (25 50 hrs) towards 120 hrs could reduce young
  driver accidents considerably in first two years
  of solo driving and be cost-effective

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Priority measures 2 protection in solo driving

• zero alcohol for young drivers (widely accepted)
• restrictions on peer age passengers
• Restrict night-time driving (more difficult to
  implement)
• restrictions can be lifted progressively as
  drivers gain experience

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Priority measure 3 Driver training and
examination

• Focus on self-evaluation and risk increasing
  factors
• Research benefits of driver training (GDE)
• Improve driving test
• High validity
• High reliability
• Free of corruption
• Key elements in test are key elements in training

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Priority measure 4 new technology

• Explore, develop and test technology
• Monitoring of solo driving restrictions (smart
  key)
• Rewards and enforcement green box
• Giving useful driver support (not yet available)

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Incentives and communication

• Inform and persuade improve communication
• Entertainment and video games
• Involve parents
• Insurance companies
• The health sector

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Managing change

• Communicate extent of the problem
• The need to act endorsed by high level decision-
  makers
• Inform stakeholders
• Link young driver measures closely to national
  road safety strategies (specific targets?)
• Coordinate on different levels
• Flexible introduction of measures evaluation
• Consider social equity impacts
• Learn from others

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A VISION

• To create a situation in which
• overall road safety continually improves,
• the differences in risk levels between young and
  older drivers are greatly reduced,
• especially with regard to young male drivers.