If you are a young male driver you are not probably happy to be included in the high risk drivers group. First of all, this would mean that you can forget about cheap auto insurance. Secondly, you may not consider yourself to be a high risk at all. In fact you may be a careful motorist who doesn’t take chances on the roads.
Unfortunately, young drivers get bundled in with the rest of their age group and charged higher premiums. However, you may be able to show car insurers that you are a better driver than they give you credit for by signing up for black box insurance policies. This little device will tell how well you are handling your automobile.
Why young male drivers are singled out by insurers?
The most important reason is the accident and claims statistics used by companies. About 95% of all fatal accidents are caused by male drivers that there is hardly any doubt male drivers are more dangerous than female. Furthermore, teenage drivers are 4 times more likely to cause accidents than drivers of over 25 years of age. If we put those two figures together we can see clearly that young male drivers are the riskiest of them all.
Driving license disqualifications in the UK
Recent information released by DVLA under the freedom of information act shows that over 92,000 people were disqualified from driving between July 2013 and June 2014 in the UK. One third of those drivers were males between the age of 20 and 30. And only 15% of disqualified drivers were female. These figures don’t help young male drivers at all when it comes to making a point that they are not dangerous. They clearly are and much worse than female drivers.
What do these statistical figures tell us?
It is a tragedy to see loss of young lives, serious injuries and financial losses due to dangerous driving practices. It is even more tragic to see totally innocent people suffer the consequences of someone else’s recklessness. According to Cheap Auto Insurance this age group should be encouraged to take defensive driving courses. You cannot force people to take these courses. But they may be willing to join them if there are enough incentives like cheaper auto insurance rates and avoidance of penalties after they get caught driving recklessly.
Many car insurance companies offer discounts to drivers who complete a recognised advance driving courses. Also, it is a known practice that local authorities offer the option of taking an advance driving course to offending drivers instead of facing the penalties and driving license point deductions.
When these incentives encourages more young drivers improve their driving skills we all benefit from safer roads. We have to remember that we share roads with all the good and bad drivers and their actions can have serious consequences for us.
It is worth keeping in mind that young drivers make it to their 20s and still keep bad habits. This suggests that parents should involve in improving their skills at early ages. Leaving the driving education to instructors only and assuming that teenagers are fully skilled to drive after passing their driving license test may be misguided. Parents should keep an eye on their children to make sure they don’t pick up bad habits and learn to avoid dangerous practices behind the wheel.
Photo Credit: Hyundai
