There are some reckless young tearaways on our roads for whom there is no excuse. Many of them cast their mayhem wider into a criminal lifestyle.

Fortunately they are few, and most young drivers are not like that. The vast majority of them want to be safe. But even these youngsters then still crash far more than the rest of us. Sometimes they make tragic headlines of multiple deaths.

As adults, it is tempting to seek in every crash a way to just ‘blame the kids’, and perhaps begin to wonder whether they should be allowed to drive at all. But there are specific handicaps that we, as adults, give to young drivers which increase their crash risk and contribute to the carnage that disturbs us.

This is not to say we should find excuses for the novices who crash - they need to be encouraged to take more responsibility for themselves, not less. But along with this, and more importantly, we can not expect to reduce the problem if we deny the part that adults play in causing it. No matter how horrific the symptoms may be, we should not be blind to the underlying causes.

Along the complex and confusing journey that young people have into modern adulthood, the ability to drive is one of the most constructive elements. Mobility and independence is central to many healthy aspirations and opportunities. This makes it even more important that we help, not hinder, their progress and their ability to drive properly.

Let’s look at three handicaps created for young drivers.

1. We constrain children’s experience of risk in their most formative years
There is growing concern that shielding children from risk - especially in their play - stunts their natural development right through to adulthood. They are less aware of how to identify and deal with risks, and less prepared to take self-reliant responsibility for themselves. This has clear implications when they come to drive.

For dread of the slightest graze, we ban everything: ball games, tree swings, snowballs, cycling, running in the playground, and even skipping and conkers. And we thrust our head deep into the sand on the damage that this ’safe from harm overload’ is actually doing.

One of the most striking signs of our times is the extraordinary shrinkage in the ‘radius of freedom’ that most kids now have to venture beyond the garden gate. Many are barely allowed out on their own well into the teen years. But filling them with fear is more about the adult’s own peace of mind than the presence of actual surrounding danger. Play that is fondly prescribed, provided and supervised is negative for their development into capable people.

The ‘cotton wool culture’ of risk aversion and dependence, instead of risk awareness and self-reliance, is an unhealthy lesson for every stage of their life. Alongside frustration at the bewildering rules, it lays down the assumption in their mind that someone else will always look after them.

Interestingly, with this over-protection we have also seen a steady deterioration in behaviour and discipline, notably apparent in schools. Perhaps it would help us understand what we are doing if we see the energies of childhood and adolescence as a balloon that will pop out somewhere else when it is squeezed.

Recent work on ‘frontal lobe development’ is also enlightening. This is the finding that the part of the brain responsible for key functions, such as hazard anticipation and risk management, is not fully developed until age 25. These functions have an obvious application in driving, and also help to counter the over-confidence that comes from the ease with which most youngsters learn physical car control.

It is emerging from trials that the ability of this part of the brain can be improved with training and experience - which is excellent if the training is made available. But it also poses the possibility that the converse can happen too, and that shielding children from risk might inhibit the natural process and pace of brain development, leaving youngsters with even less function than they ’should’ have, and contributing to poor risk management ability.

Clearly, over-protection is a social and cultural trend, but driver training must address this handicap if we are to turn out safe young drivers.

2. We give them fictitious stereotypes of adults, males and drivers
Images of the adult world used in entertainment and marketing often bear little relation to reality. But careful presentation makes unlikely celebrities and fictional characters look like reasonable aspirations and role models. Especially in this fantasy, masculinity is defined as various blends of strong, fearless, daring and arrogant. And cars and driving are often employed to make the point.

For young boys, this taps straight into the raw urge for action-oriented challenges that nature has wired into the male brain. The images are designed to be compelling and to meet with approval in peer groups - who are equally confused about who they are and how to grow up. When they need guiding lights, these are false beacons that point to the rocks.

We see them hooked into the fantasy as the strutting bravado becomes a naked parade of the anxieties and self-doubt that it tries to keep secret. But this is difficult for a teenager to fathom from the inside, and even harder if there is no guiding adult male at home or close by to make sense of it all.

Girls tend to be less affected by the action-stereotype. The yearning in the female brain is to socialise instead. So boys tend to be drawn into ‘heroic quest’ computer games more seriously than girls, while the advent of chat-rooms has suddenly rocketed the hours that girls spend online. Even today’s ’so cool’ techno-kids are still nature’s children, living out predictable roles.

At the same time though, we also see an overlap where some girls seem intent on copying the worst male behaviour, such as binge-drinking, creating a bizarre notion of competition and equality.

But still, and despite what they would have us believe, a lot of young people’s behaviour is guided by what they believe an adult is. And this is definitely something they learn mainly from adults.

In fairness, we should not be surprised that saturating children with an alchemy of distorted stereotypes leads them to strange assumptions about what society wants and expects from them as they grow up. They don’t see through fantasies as well as experienced adults can, and warping their view of the world makes a lot of things more difficult.

Again, this is a handicap created by social factors, but especially for young males, driver training must expose the stereotypes. This begins by recognising the specific flawed beliefs that create macho driving styles, and then carefully dismantling them. The action-impulse doesn’t need to be outlawed, it is the backbone of male achievement, but it does need direction.

3. We withhold the most critical safety skills when we teach them to drive
This is the worst adult delinquency of all - the way we train young people to drive. More than anything else, this ensures high risk when novices suddenly go solo.

There is now a broad and overdue acceptance that “fundamental reform in how we teach people to drive” is urgently needed. The traditional focus on physical car control does not impart the skills required to drive safely. Years of statistics bear testament.

This is no startling revelation, of course, it has been known for generations. The maxim, “You really learn to drive after passing the test”, isn’t an urban myth or something that teenagers dreamt up to torment us. It is a rational adult judgment on the training system borne of long experience - known for decades, yet still allowed to be true.

There are other beliefs implanted into young minds that compound the neglect, such as:

• ‘Driving skill is about good car control, especially at speed’
• ‘Good car control will let me handle any situation’
• ‘The L-test and a bit of practice covers the skills needed for safe driving’
• ‘Passing the test demonstrates that an acceptable standard of safety has been reached’.

And we should not protest that we don’t directly tell them these things. Again, these are not beliefs the youngsters invent. They are absorbed from the adult ether, and the training system allows them to thrive when it should be doing surgical removal.

In reality, we have been keeping big secrets, because we know that:

• real safety is in how drivers think - before they commit to physical actions
• focusing on car control will inevitably incite red-blooded young males to prove themselves
• novices are left to discover the most critical safety skills for themselves, as best they can on their own. And without being told what the skills are, or that they are necessary
• young drivers need to become far safer than their test performance.

The Essential Thinking Skills proposal to the Driving Standards Agency has already outlined a start-point for introducing thinking skills into driver training. It recommends the inclusion of:

• Beliefs - that are true (!) and provide a safer mindset from the beginning
• Sense of danger - to identify risk in terms that drivers can trust and control
• Driving skills framework - to explain how and why thinking skills are so critical
• Learning from experience - to implant a naturally increasing safety ability
• Specific techniques to improve risk assessment and control in real traffic situations.

To some extent, these are gained over time by experienced drivers. But the mystery box can all be disclosed and taught to learners and novices at the outset.

These are also the skills that enable drivers to take responsibility, and this removes another key blockage. Without knowing how to do it, the call to ‘take responsibility’ is a hollow demand that drivers will always struggle to meet. Car control is a poor illusion of being actually in control of driving situations.

Significantly too, the lack of training in the mental skills leaves novices more exposed to picking up unsafe driving practices from family or friends, or bowing to influence from peer passengers. With little grasp of how to assess risk as they drive, there is no benchmark against which to judge the folly of inattention, drink, drugs, fatigue, wrong speed, or simply acting the fool. They are also more exposed to the dangers created by other road users.

Novice drivers are at the point of being most dependent on what they are shown. And their fate is currently skewed by the yawning chasm in the training they receive.

Conclusion
Through honest eyes, the main reasons for the carnage among novice drivers are rooted in what adults do. We deny youngsters healthy encounters with risk, give them a distorted picture of adulthood, and withhold skills we know they need to have. In our nurturing of future generations, this is simple neglect.

Although some of the handicaps for young drivers are created in society, outside the realm of driving, this does not put them beyond reach. It simply underlines that driving is part of life, and that society tilts the pitch against many things that people need to do.

In driver training, our adult responsibility should lead us to:

• recognise how novice drivers are actively steered into high risk
• replace false beliefs with ones that will help young people understand and cope more successfully with the demands of driving. This can and should start at pre-driving age
• reveal the full scope of driving skill, and show how it really works
• teach the specific thinking skills that are the core of drivers being able to take care of themselves.

The necessary reform of driver training must accept the responsibility for creating safe drivers. The system design should not include restrictions and law enforcement as an easier alternative, or to cover over known and avoidable failures in the training. Our job is to work on the causes of the problem, not just punish the symptoms. And no one wants a rising generation that is primed with resentment.

Many novice drivers themselves sense that something is wrong, and would be keen to learn about the ‘real driving’ that confronts them after the test. Young people do want to be skilled, and value the boost that comes from being regarded as such.

The adult responsibility is to take this opportunity, and ensure that fundamental reform is ‘fundamentally different’ from the stream of past measures that have made no impression on the casualty graph.

Stephen Haley runs The Skilldriver project and is author of the book “Mind Driving” and can be contacted at shaley@advanced-driving.co.uk

Road safety is not a national problem – it is an international problem. SAFEX 2008 asks the question: what are the world’s governments doing to address this global catastrophe?

SAFEX 2008, organised by road safety experts IVV and sponsored by the DIA, is the only world road safety conference to target driver trainers and driver education and provide a truly international perspective to the issues involved in reducing the number of deaths on the world’s roads.

SAFEX 2008 is coming back to London after many years. The conference offers opportunities to meet old friends and make new contacts with road safety practitioners, academics, politicians, key researchers and members of the driver training industry from around the world.

The Driver Education World Conference is being held in London from the 16th-18th May inclusive. More information can be found at http://www.ivvsafex.com/

It raises some interesting issues, too: does three points on your licence because you committed a hand-held mobile phone offence make you more dangerous as a risk than three points for a “routine” speeding offence?

The answer, according to Allianz, is definitely yes.  They describe the hand-held phone offence as a “dangerous and needless act”.

So now those who persist with this dangerous hand-held habit will suffer the triple whammy: a fine, points on their licence, and an increase in the insurance premium when they renew.

It is now more than a year since the tougher penalties for hand-held mobile phone use were introduced.  The Department for Transport (DfT) has said 185,000 drivers were caught using hand held phones in 2007.

But the offence continues: according to Allianz, ten per cent of motorists admitted in a survey to using their mobile without a hands-free kit while they were behind the wheel.

The tougher penalty is now a doubled fine, from £30 to £60, with three penalty points.

There has never been a better time to invest in a Bluetooth hands-free kit, which are widely available at less than £30.  Put bluntly, that’s less than half the cost of the fine if you are caught.

By making sure that your Bluetooth hands-free kit is always in the car and charged you will be able to keep your phone on while driving, without running the risk of committing a hand-held offence.  However, there is an important caveat here.  Even when you have the hands-free habit, use it with care.  Remember, even hands-free conversations are a major distraction, putting you and other road users at risk.

But with a Bluetooth on, you can make a point of telling callers that you are driving, and find somewhere legal, safe and convenient to pull over and continue your conversation.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

The single most common mistake at a roundabout is only looking to your right as you approach, because that is where you expect traffic to come from. But what about the car ahead of you - can that driver see something that you can’t?

It is better to gather as much information as you can - start to check to your right, straight ahead, to your left, and all your mirrors as you approach the roundabout. By carrying out your observations in this sweeping/scanning motion, you are more likely to pick up if the car in front decides not to go for some reason.

The classic rear end shunt, caused by the driver ahead not going when you think he’s going, can thus be avoided. Help yourself further by keeping a good gap between you and the vehicle waiting to get on, so if he changes his mind half way you have room to stop without compromising yourself.

Drivers often approach the roundabout with the plan to continue unless they have to stop because of other traffic. The problem here is that you may notice another car just as you get close to the roundabout, but you are more likely to speed up, opting to “take a chance” because it is difficult to change your mind at the last moment.

A slightly different, but very much more effective mental outlook is to approach the roundabout thinking “plan to stop but look to go”.

As you scan, remember you are looking for gaps, as well as vehicles.

And once you are on the roundabout, remember not everybody will position themselves correctly to get off: you could find somebody sweeping cross you to get to their exit. Remember that the lorry or bus needs lots of room, and try not to be actually alongside it.

On a mini roundabout, if you are approach at the same time as an oncoming vehicle, clearly indicate you intention and then do a visual check - try to catch the driver’s eye and send a message to avoid the ambiguous situation when nobody is quite sure who should go first.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

This may be because we all suffer from “signage overload”: there are so many instructions, official and unofficial, and so many direction signs and road signs competing for our attention that we already have our head full of information coming at us at eye level. That makes it easier to miss the ones painted on the tarmac beneath us.

Road users often seem totally unaware of the relevance of road markings, even when they see them.

But as a rule of thumb, the more paint there is on the road surface, the more potential danger there is. Nobody has chosen to go to the time and expense (not to mention the considerable risk) of putting paint on the road without a reason.

Sadly even experienced motorists seem to be ignorant of the markings. I was recently told that a double white line down the middle of the carriageway was there to “stop us turning right across it.”

This is worrying, because those particular markings are there for quite a different purpose: to prevent vehicles crossing onto the other carriageway at that point.

Some cross-hatchings are no-go areas (those that have a surrounding solid white line). You should not use these areas unless it is a serious emergency or you are directed there by a police officer.

As well as the official marking on the road surface, there are the unofficial ones which can also serve to remind the observant driver of potential danger. The classic these days is the long, snaking skid mark. That means some unfortunate has had a crash, or a near miss, or certainly taken drastic action for some reason.

When you see these, ask you self what might have happened, and see if there is anything you can do to prevent getting into the same situation.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

Some purchasers of private number plates continue to break the law, but the rules have been put in place for justifiable reasons. Therefore, anyone thinking of buying a plate, perhaps to display their name or the football team they support, should be familiar with today’s regulations.

The Most Common Law Breakers
It’s fairly commonplace to spy an italicised font, or a Betty Boop logo on a vehicle registration. In fact, many members of the public may not even be aware that these are illegal. However, it is now more important than ever to have clearly visible plates. It is crucial that witnesses of accidents and crime are able to identify a registration. Those who alter the standard font and spacing of characters may potentially be causing problems that could have been avoided.

The following alterations to number plates are not permitted by law:

• Fancy or decorative typefaces, such as italic fonts
• Altering of characters. For example, placing a bolt in the middle of the number 11 to give the illusion of the letter H. This prevents the human eye, as well as roadside cameras, from recognising the true character
• Sporting emblems and religious symbols
• Honeycomb or any other background designs

Stay Legal
A cherished number plate is a great way of making a vehicle unique and personal to the buyer. Purchasing one can be a very effective, but it really is sensible to stay on the right side of the law.

Listed below are rules that should not be broken:

• Only the ‘Charles Wright 2001′ font, a simple, clear typeface, is allowed
• Excepting the letter I and the number 1, characters must be 79mm high and 50mm wide. The width of each character stroke must be 14mm and one must be able to measure 11mm between each character in the same grouping. Additionally, character groups must also be 33mm apart
• Front plates must have a white background with black characters, while rear plates are also required to have the black characters, but on a yellow background.

However, there are certain alterations that are optional:

• A coloured, non-reflective border
• A 3D effect on the typeface
• Older/vintage cars (those manufactured prior to 1973) can display the old-style, black plates. They have the option of having white, silver or grey characters, as well as a choice of either a plastic plate or a traditional metal one
• Number plates may display one of the following national emblems on a blue panel: British Union Flag with “GB” legend, English Flag (St. George’s Cross) with “ENG”, Scottish (St. Andrew) with “SCO”, Welsh (green dragon on green/white field) with “Wales” or “Cymru”, or Euro Flag (circle of stars) with “GB”.

Apart from the Euro Flag option, national emblems are not officially recognised in the regulations. However, the government has said that they are permitted. It is expected that the law will soon be revised to reflect the current de facto acceptance of these flags. The expected amendment of the regulations will not allow other graphics or emblems.

The Registration Itself
When choosing a number plate, one important rule must be remembered:

A registration that would result in one’s vehicle appearing newer than it actually is, is not permitted

Therefore, if Jenny wanted to purchase the prefix plate J34 NNY, she would need to be aware that it could not be placed onto a vehicle that was manufactured before August 1991. Fortunately, the majority of drivers are purchasing newer cars, so this isn’t a huge problem, as it is not breaking the law to put an older plate on to a newer vehicle.

Additionally, dateless plates are also available and this means that the problem is completely avoided.

Cherished number plates are the most effective way of making a vehicle unique, as every single one is different. However, don’t be the one to get caught out - stick to the rules.

Private Number Plates

• only 36 per cent (1 per cent more than 2007) believed that cameras were positioned only at serious crash sites, and

• only 39 per cent (3 per cent fewer than 2007) believed that raising revenue was not the motive for using ’speed’ cameras.

Kevin Delaney, Head of Road Safety for the IAM Trust says, “This survey confirms a recent downward trend in numbers of drivers being caught by safety cameras*”.  Hopefully, it is because more believe that safety cameras save lives, but it could be to do with motorists becoming more aware of where cameras are sited. Either way, the trends are good news for road safety.

“Since April 2007, the money raised from speed cameras can fund a range of road safety schemes - including more safety cameras. Breaking the link between revenue and enforcement is a vital first step in regaining public confidence in the speed limit enforcement.”

* The number of motorists who said they, or a member of their household, had been flashed and fined fell from 28 per cent in 2007 to 20 per cent in 2008 (18 per cent in 2002).

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

But a recent survey by the Department for Transport (DfT) said that motorists who ignore that innocent yawn are putting themselves and other road users at risk if they press on regardless.

As many as one in five of all crashes on major roads are caused by tired drivers.  And it may be even more - because those drivers that survive a crash (or a near miss) are unlikely to admit that they were too tired to drive when it happened.

The DfT said that we all want to finish our journeys as quickly as possible but being tired at the wheel is a “proven killer” that we cannot ignore.   Those who drive for work are particularly at risk.

The IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) said that although falling asleep straight away while you’re driving is very rare, it is surprising how many people ignore the signs of fatigue beforehand.  The IAM advises:

• Don’t start a long trip if you’re already tired.  Remember that a working day away from the office will involve extra travelling time that could leave you exhausted by the time you are heading for home.

• Plan your journey to include at least a 15 minute break every two hours, even if you feel you don’t need it.  You will be refreshed.  Use the break away from the car to catch up with phone messages.

• If you feel drowsy, don’t press on regardless.  Find a safe place to stop (but not the hard shoulder). If you have a nap, take the keys out the ignition and lock the car doors.

• As an emergency measure drink two cups of coffee or a high-caffeine drink and have a rest for 10-15 minutes to allow time for the caffeine to kick in.

Lastly, don’t rely on what some drivers admitted to as their solution - slapping themselves in the face!  Other non-solutions reported to the IAM include turning up the radio, singing, shaking the head vigorously and opening all the windows.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

If you have, then have a think about how you actually go about assessing the severity of bends. If you get it wrong, the consequences are potentially very serious, particularly on rural roads, which still dominate crash statistics.

And it is not just young, inexperienced drivers who get “caught out” by bends. It is here that, in the jargon, most “single vehicle accidents”take place.

There are a number of clues we can take from the environment to help us. The most obvious are the road signs and markings. There are other less obvious ones: the line of the trees, hedges, buildings, street lights or telegraph poles (although remember that sometimes telegraph poles run through fields, so don’t follow them!).

The actual width of the road can be a factor: the narrower it is, the less space you have to manoeuvre. Skid marks on the road are an indication of past mistakes. The position and speed of other traffic can also provide you with valuable information. Another particularly useful way of assessing a bend is to use the “limit point analysis”.

The limit point is the furthest point which you can see, i.e. where the left and right hand sides of the road meet. To use this technique first make sure that you can stop before you get to it, then simply ask yourself: is it getting further away? If it is and you can see further ahead, then your speed should be fine. On the other hand if it is getting closer, then you could continue to reduce speed until the limit point begins to move with you and your view opens up again.

This technique takes a bit of practice but it will help you to link your speed with your range of vision and allow you to stop in the distance seen to be clear. And in roads where you can’t see through the bends it gives you a reliable and practical solution to a difficult judgement problem.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

We can’t do much about the Budget - but hard-pressed motorists can use this as a spur to adopt “eco-driving” techniques, promoted by the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists).  Driving experts say that just a few small changes to driving habits could reduce our fuel consumption by 8.5 per cent, and shave £120 off the annual fuel costs.

Ask yourself: “Do I really need to drive?” It’s the shortest journeys - less than two miles - which cause the most pollution and are inefficient in terms of fuel consumption. A straining cold engine will produce 60 per cent more pollution than a warm one. Yet it’s these shorter journeys that are ideal for walking or cycling.

Plan your route. A bit of forethought can save much wear and tear - for the car, and the driver. Try to take the most direct route and go off-peak if possible. Sitting in congestion means you are often doing zero miles per gallon. If you have to commute by car, think about car sharing, Park and Ride schemes or public transport.

Check your tyres. Correct tyre pressures will keep wear down and fuel economy up. Under-inflated tyres need replacing more often (itself an environmental problem) as well as being dangerous. Anybody who has cycled on under-inflated tyres will appreciate how much extra effort is involved!  Make a point of checking them at least once a week.

Obey the speed limits. Try to “feather” the throttle as you reach your cruising speed. Doing 56mph uses 25 per cent less fuel than 70mph and a smoother driving style can bring significant fuel saving. But never coast to save fuel; vehicle control must not be compromised.

Reduce the drag factor by removing roof racks and carriers when not in use. Driving with the window open also increases drag and lowers fuel economy. Remove unnecessary boot luggage, avoid heavy accessories and wide tyres that add rolling resistance. Air conditioning lowers fuel economy so use the vent settings as much as possible instead.

Use “accelerator” sense.  Do you go straight from the accelerator to the brake? You would save fuel if you planned ahead, and rather than have to brake as you hit traffic, gently let the speed of the vehicle bring you to a halt as you join a queue. There is no point in rushing and then having to brake to come to a sudden halt.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)