Motoring convictions highlight need for more education

More young men are being convicted of causing death or bodily harm on UK roads than ever before, the Government has revealed in the annual Motoring Offences and Breath Test statistics (2005) released by the Ministry of Justice, with men aged 17 to 20 being responsible for 107 of the 413 convictions.

According to an analysis of the statistics by esure, over 60 times more young men than young women were convicted of the UK’s two most serious driving offences in 2005 (‘causing death or bodily harm’ and ‘dangerous driving’). Male drivers aged 17-20 were responsible for 1,993 of the 6,177 total convictions representing nearly a third (32.2%) of such convictions despite only representing around 3% of the UK driving population. By contrast, the proportion for women of the same age was just 0.5%.

The analysis also reveals that drivers under 21 were responsible for 15% of all UK motoring convictions: nearly three times more than their proportion of the driving population would warrant.

When considering the overall proportion of men versus women of all ages convicted across the 25 categories, the figures show that 88% of convictions were for men.

Mike Pickard, Head of Risk and Underwriting for esure said: “Despite an overwhelming body of evidence, the UK government is still not taking the problem of young male drivers seriously enough. esure believes that while young men possess the necessary skills to drive safely they often fail to do so because of poor attitudes to speed, risk, shared space and the law that are not addressed through appropriate education.”

He added: “We believe that young people need education about the dangers of driving irresponsibly while still at school and before they ever get behind the wheel.”

While toughening up the driving test and imposing ever tighter conditions on young drivers may help reduce the number of deaths on UK roads, esure feels that measures such as bans on driving at night are missing the point. esure has been calling for school children to receive compulsory education on the dangers of driving irresponsibly for several years.

“The root cause of dangerous driving by young males is irresponsible and naïve attitudes toward road safety and a misplaced sense of their own invulnerability. These attitudes can only be changed by early educational interventions and not by knee-jerk reactions like bans on carrying passengers or driving at night”, Mike Pickard continued.

esure has also been extremely disappointed that these statistics have been published nearly six months later than last year, despite the Ministry of Justice admitting it had all the necessary information in January this year.