Historically young drivers (particularly males) have paid big premiums to drive even the smallest cars, and many would argue that this situation is fair as this age group of drivers is statistically the worst, and present much higher levels of risk that the motor insurance companies have to carry. However, there a voices in the government who think it is unfair that the insurance companies automatically dump everyone under the age of 21 in to this group of ‘risky drivers’, despite the fact that under 21 year olds account for almost 20% of motoring convictions and are responsible for over 30% of dangerous driving offences.

The proposed bill is not aimed directly at the car insurance industry, but is designed to root out inequality in whichever industry it is found. There’s no doubt though that car insurance for teenagers is one area where it could potentially have a huge impact.

At the moment these are just proposals, but if they become law I foresee one of two possible outcomes:

1. Car insurance companies – such as Albany Car Insurance – will stop offering insurance to certain sectors of society which could actually make the situation worse for today’s young drivers. It might be expensive to get auto insurance at the moment, but at least it is available and young people can drive legally. If the companies clamp down, how will a young person ever establish themselves as a safe driver for insurance purposes? Unless of course the government force companies to accept young drivers as customers………

2. …….In which case we will probably all lose out. Insurance companies look solely at risk, but if they are prevented in some way from charging an appropriate amount for that level of risk from one group of customers, the cost of that risk will have to be met some other way. You guessed it; we will all end up paying more – I can assure you that it won’t be the insurance companies that lose out!

If this bill becomes law and is adopted by other governments, we will certainly see a big shake up in the teenage drivers insurance market, whether it will be for the better or not only time will tell.

There’s no getting away from the fact that teenage drivers are over-represented in the statistics dealing with fatal automobile accidents. Many of these accidents are preventable, with speed and alcohol being major factors in the cause of many of these accidents.

When we hear of these tragedies, the media has a habit of parading the latest road safety expert who’ll tell us that if our kids got more drivers education to make them better drivers, then that will reduce the numbers of accidents.

I do not agree that it is lack of education that is the problem and for as long as that remains the consensus, we will never improve teenage driver safety. Let me explain why I think this:

There is no doubt that teenage drivers have far less experience than older established drivers, it couldn’t be otherwise – but that fact alone does not make young people bad drivers.

My personal belief is that the vast majority of our young drivers are fully competent to be driving a car; they have only recently been undertaken thorough drivers education, they have diligently practiced driving and they have patiently improved their driving skills – you have to reach a certain standard to get your drivers license.

Most of our young drivers are courteous on the road, they stop at red lights and stop signs, they signal before they make a turn or change lanes, and in general they obey the laws of the highway without question. In fact you could argue that at this stage they have not yet adopted the sloppy driving habits of many older drivers.

I believe that it’s not bad driving but the bad choices that our young drivers make that is the main cause of many accidents. Peer pressure plays a large part in the ‘bad choices’ that our teenage drivers make, if you think back to when you first started driving, how many of you could honestly say that you drove the same way if your friends were in your car rather than your parents?

If we ever want to make any progress in this area, and improve teenage driver safety, we need to examine why teenagers take risks, and why it is more important for them to impress their friends than to remain safe.

Alternatively we could do worse than to look at countries such as Australia and Ireland where they have much stricter laws governing when a teenager can start driving solo and the times of day they are allowed to drive.

Update

Car Insurance For Teenagers understands that many governments around the world a now looking closely at the systems employed in countries such as Ireland and Australia to see if similar laws that are followed there would have an impact on improved teenage driver safety.