ADUK Archive

Interesting little piece in the Independent, but no link to the research that says so?

The DFT's figures show that age is a factor, but what is more important is the length of time that person has been driving. An older person who passes their test at 60 has almost the same risk of an accident as someone in their late early twenties (2)

2) DFT Road Safety Research Report No.87 Learning to Drive: The Evidence. Figure 1.1: The effects of age (maturation) and experience on accident liability

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 72270.html

I would agree that the length of time that an older person has been driving plays a large part in their probability of being involved in an accident.

Those that learn late in life will usualy take considerably longer to learn than a teenager for example. As with any inexperienced driver they tend to get more confused in unusual situations where it is necessary to do something other than what they were taught, which is where the older driver who has been driving for years is more likely to cope with the situation. This is hardly surprising, as at the end of the day, and however good the training they recieve, there is still no substitute for experience, in whatever field of expertise a person is involved in.

As for young drivers, and I'm not tarring you all with the same brush, it is well known that thrill seeking, inatention, and peer pressure play a large part in the type of accident they are prone to, although inatention is IIAC the biggest cause of accidents in all age groups.

I can see this following similar lines to the male/female debate.

IMHO, for what it's worth, I suspect that older drivers are "safer" because they:

drive fewer miles
mostly drive familiar roads
restrict themselves to quiet times and/or daylight