Why Do Young Drivers Have Car Accidents?

Co-op Insurance has recently released some interesting data relating to such things as why, when and where young drivers have road traffic accidents. We thought you might find it of interest to read about some of these statistics.

It is interesting that 17% of young motorists have been in a road traffic accident with 62% of those accidents happening in the morning.

Below are the top reasons why a young motorist has a road traffic accident: –

1. 42% said it was another driver who was responsible for causing the accident to take place.
2. 10% put the reason down to a problem with the mechanical side of the vehicle.
3. 9% of young drivers said that they did not pay attention whist driving.
4. 8% claimed that they had to swerve out of the way to avoid colliding with something or someone in the road.
5. 8% said that the accident was due to a passenger in the vehicle distracting them.
6. 7% of drivers blamed the road traffic accident on the fact that they were stretching to pick something up in the car.
7. 7% admitted to having a road traffic accident whilst trying to avoid hitting a cyclist.
8. 6% said that they crashed their vehicle whilst moving out of the way of a pothole in the road.
9. 6% caused an accident whilst they were changing the station on their car radio.
10. 5% claimed that their satellite navigation system distracted them resulting in a road traffic accident.

So, where were the most popular places that accidents took place? Well, in first place was at a road junction with 24% of young motorists stating this, in second place at 20% was in residential areas, in third place was on A roads with 20% claiming this to be the case, in fourth place at 17% was in car parks and in fifth place at 15% was on motorways.

Unfortunately, a number of those motorists may have seen their car insurance premiums increase which is bad news especially when you consider that it is young drivers who tend to pay more on average for their car insurance than other more experienced drivers.

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