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WELCOME
Neil Worth Chief Executive, GEM Motoring Assist
I am pleased to welcome you to the Young Driver Focus 2023 report, covering a great event that brought together key road safety and industry stakeholders in the exceptional surroundings of the Royal Automobile Club.
This conference, now in its eighth year, manages to engage and inspire all of us who work with young drivers, helping us help them stay safe on the roads. This year was no exception, and included a new interactive round table format with inclusive open workshop sessions, making the whole event even more rewarding.
I am proud that GEM Motoring Assist, an organisation born from a near-miss with a young driver back in 1932, was headline sponsor once more. As a road safety and breakdown organisation, we passionately
believe that everyone has a role to play in keeping each other safe on the roads. That's why we've always encouraged our members to drive with 'Care, Courtesy and Concentration'.
We have a proud history of working with partners to support innovative initiatives that can improve road safety for young drivers and the wider community. Young Driver Focus does this and more, providing a great forum for networking, finding new partners to work with and developing new ways to deliver key messages based on sound research, facts, feedback and discussion. It's a team effort and a winning formula.
GEM has been an advocate for road safety since 1932. Our commitment is the same today in '23 as it was then in '32.
Organised by
In association with Supported by
Nicola Wass CEO, SO-MO
ofImportance wearing a seatbelt p6
Dr Sam Chapman Co-Founder, The Flow
Choosing telematics insurance p10
Dr Shaun Helman Chief Scientist, TRL
Extending the learning to drive process p14
Edmund King OBE President, The AA Summary of the day p22
Tom Leggett Vehicle Technology Specialist, Thatcham Research
Driving vehiclessafer p8
Professor Ashleigh Filtness
Human Factors & Sleep Science, Loughboroough University
Getting enough sleep p12
James Luckhurst & Darren Lindsey Founder & Consultant, Project Edward
Every day without a road death p18
Elizabeth Box
Research Director, RAC Foundation
Time to get specific p24
NICOLA WASS
Nicola has over 20 years' experience of bringing the human perspective to the heart of policy, service, and intervention design. She has an in-depth understanding of the frameworks and insights that drive effective behaviour change.
Her clients have included the six largest UK local authorities, hospital trusts, ICS (integrated care systems), and national government.
SO-MO was set up ten years ago. A small team of behavioural specialists and researchers that aims to offer a more complete understanding of what drives human choice and behaviour, while providing practical and pragmatic solutions to real world challenges. They blend the principles and practice of behavioural science, cognitive and social psychology with service and experience design.
The need to belt up...
Seatbelt law in the UK came into force 40 years ago. The latest official figures reveal that 95% of all drivers wear seatbelts (92% of backseat passengers). We have the highest seatbelt wearing population in the world!
Despite only 6% of all occupants not belting up, official statistics reveal that 30% of the vehicle fatalities in 2021 were not wearing a seatbelt.
Legislation has been a huge success. This is especially so when you consider “how difficult it is to change human behaviour – humans are irrational”. We tend to be “optimistic about our own skills and those of others”.
There is some concern that non-compliance has increased slightly over recent years with a drop in compliance of around 2%.
It will be important to understand who the 6% not belting up are. There are indications that young people may be overrepresented. In 2017, car drivers aged 17-29 had the lowest wearing rates of all ages at 97.2%, compared with 99.3% for drivers aged 60 or over.
Research commissioned by road safety charity Brake found that just 62% of
motorists aged between 25 and 34 always wear a seat belt in a car.
SOME KEY QUESTIONS:
● Policy to action - are we seeing stated ambitions for seatbelt wearing reflected in local plans and budgets?
● Are policing resources sufficient to capitalise on further changes to the law?
● Are newer approaches to behaviour change understood and being leveraged?”
“We need to dig down into the data, ask questions of the data, the detail, and ensure that we are targeting the right people and in the right way to ensure we get traction to change behaviour.”
Discussion quotes:
Amanda Hornby –Senior Policy Adviser, National Highways
“The majority of seatbelt offences, over 80%, were commercial vehicle drivers”
Chris Spinks – Managing Director, Westcotec
“Young people think they are indestructible, it won’t
Statistics reveal 30% of all vehicle fatalities in 2021 were not wearing a seatbelt
happen to them. The most ridiculous reason I have come across of a front seat passenger not wearing a seatbelt is because they didn’t want to disrespect the driver”
“At the moment people do not think they will get caught because there is a lack of traffic police out on the road”
Olly Tayler QPM – Co Founder, Honest Truth (ex-traffic police) officer)
“I have never been to an RTC where a seatbelt has caused a death or more serious injury. There are myths out there that need to be dispelled”
“Young people in the back are often found not to be wearing a seatbelt. They say it’s not cool or it messes their clothes up. If you end up through a window it’s going to mess up more than your clothes”
TOM LEGGETT
Tom is a 'Vehicle Technology Specialist' at Thatcham Research - a ‘not for profit’ organisation set up by the insurance industry in 1969. His work is around gathering insight and intelligence regarding current and future technology. Working closely with manufacturers and technology suppliers, he helps decipher the meaning of new technologies and how these may and, do, affect users, including road safety.
The technology of saving lives...
New vehicle technology is “not necessarily a panacea” for curing all the road safety issues, but it can have a big role in helping drivers drive more effectively and to do so as safer road users.
“Twenty years ago, the advice for new drivers was to choose a first car with ABS, passenger airbags and, at an absolute push, some kind of traction control. In the past two decades, the amount of advance driver assistance systems (ADAS) technology on affordable small cars has exploded, but consumer knowledge hasn’t necessarily kept pace”.
Whilst EuroNCAP provides easy-tounderstand ratings for active and passive vehicle safety, and “is believed to have saved more than 78,000 lives” since its first published data in 1997,
“many new drivers and parents still prioritise style and cost over safety”.
Helping the driver through technology can make a huge difference. After all, the car itself is technology, and the cleverer it is then the greater the potential to protect the driver, passengers and other road users. This may be in the way the vehicle is constructed for protection, to the driver aids that can help prevent crashes.
Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), hit the headlines around 2015 and is now compulsory on all new vehicles in the EU (2022). “It has already reduced collisions for vehicles using it by 60-70%”. But there are so many positive examples from ESC (electronic stability control) to LSS (lane support systems).
“At 30 mph a car covers
13 metres a second”. It means that distraction behind the wheel, especially for novice young drivers, is a huge issue, whether noisy peer group passengers, or a pinging smartphone. Just adjusting the sound system means drivers divert their eyes from the road for seconds at a time. “25-30% of all crashes have distraction involved, and the true number is probably more”.
New technology has the power to prevent crashes and save lives. The driver is always ultimately responsible, but the new technology is there to help keep them stay safe. Tom’s overriding message is that we need to ensure young drivers, often the most vulnerable drivers, “drive the safest vehicles”.
“Everyone knows about airbags and seatbelts, but what if we can stop the crashes happening all together?”
Discussion quotes:
Edmund King –President, The AA
“The introduction of EuroNCAP had an immense, immense effect on me personally, but, more importantly, in the last 20 years it has saved something like 78,000 lives. It's a really radical thing that has fundamentally improved the safety of all new cars since”
Olly Tayler QPM – Co
Founder, Honest Truth (ex-traffic police officer)
“Young drivers think they are indestructible, it’s never going to happen to them. Safety features in cars are just not sexy, but they are of utter importance. For me, getting them in a car they can afford with the most safety features is key because in the event of a collision, whether their fault or not, it's going to protect them”
Keanan Lloyd-Adams - Tiktokker
“Young drivers are going to make mistakes, it’s inevitable, no matter how good a driver they are”
Neil Worth – CEO, GEM Motoring Assist
“My son decided he doesn’t want to learn to drive and that’s in part because his friends drive cars that he just doesn’t feel safe travelling in" Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), has already reduced collisions for the vehicles using it by 60-70%
DR SAM CHAPMAN
Co-Founder of The Floow, a leading telematics provider and pioneer. His work and research helps to provide risk understanding and feedback to at risk drivers and road operators globally.
Telematically enhanced drivers...
By now, we all realise just how vulnerable new, young drivers are on our roads. Drivers aged
17-24-years-old account for just 7% of UK licence holders, cover fewer miles than older cohorts, yet
they account for 24% of road traffic collisions in which someone is killed. It’s a statistic that remains stubbornly high despite the successes of hazard
perception testing and updated driving tests.
Young drivers face the highest average insurance premiums in the UK, they also have the highest cost for claims on average and the highest claims frequency.
However, telematics, or ‘black box’ insurance policies, really change this picture. Young drivers who have signed up to such insurance schemes “show, on average, 22% less claims”, while the incidents they are involved in “are less severe”. This reduction enables younger drivers to get cheaper insurance"78% of under 20-yearolds can pay less with telematics policies".
It is clear that those with telematics policies are “moderating their driving behaviour” to be safer. Having virtual driver monitoring on board with young drivers also means they get feedback, prompts and tips that help them continue to improve behind the wheel. This helps to reduce personal and peer led temptations to act more recklessly, whilst instead earning rewards for safer driving. These behaviour rewards can ultimately lead to “a
54% risk scoring improvement, making individual drivers safer”.
Gaining mobility data from UK drivers and related statistics helps provide new evidence supporting road safety work nationally. For example, drivers under 20 have “7% more KSI casualties on rural roads”, “82% of deaths involving young drivers occur on rural roads” and, surprisingly compared to other drivers, “6% more KSI events happen away from junctions”.
Dr Chapman believes that telematics really is an essential tool and ingredient that can help understand young drivers, encourage more disciplined behaviour behind the wheel, and ensure all road users are safer.
Discussion quotes:
Shaun Helman – Chief Scientist, TRL
“The more data you have, the more you can use it to change behaviour…but don’t get carried away, it needs to be evidence based”
Philippa Young - Chair, Road Safety GB “There's not enough
Young drivers who have signed up tp such schemes "show, on average, 22% less claims", while the incidents they are involved in "are less severe"
independent research at all around telematics... The insurance industry has a much bigger role to play in sharing the information they have”
Simon Rewell
–
Chief Operating Officer, Co-Pilot
“Insurance companies tell people what they are doing wrong, but they don’t give them the tools to improve… Insurers need to understand the tools they have and how they can best get the information across to young people in a positive, engaging fashion”
PROFESSOR ASHLEIGH FILTNESS
Ashleigh is Professor of Transport Human Factors and Sleep Science at Loughborough University Transport Safety Research Centre. She has authored over ninety peer-reviewed publications and attracted research funding in excess of £3.3m. Throughout, sleepiness and fatigue and their impact on safety has been a recurring feature theme of her work.
Waking up to the realities of fatigue...
Sleepiness is a normal healthy daily experience for all people. But if you are completing a safety critical task at the same time, problems readily arise.
“Feeling fatigued is a natural part of human life, but if the brain wants to sleep, it will.”
It is estimated that fatigue contributes to 15–30% of all road crashes. In fact, the risk of crashing doubles when sleepy. At 70mph, a two second microsleep will see you travel 62m. Fatigue related crashes are more likely to be fatal/serious injury events, involving stationary objects, and occuring at night and over the weekend.
The statistics show us that young drivers are over-represented generally in crashes where tiredness is a contributory factor.
“Young people need more sleep than adults, as they
are transitioning from the high sleep need of a child, to the lower sleep need of adults. At the same time circadian rhythm shifts during teenage years creating a tendency for later sleep onset and early rising. This sleep need and preferred sleep timing is often at odds with life demands”.
The maturing brain needs a lot more sleep. Young people’s lifestyles, working and socialising, and their high dependency on screens and social media, combined with a lower consciousness of risk, means they too easily overestimate their ability to drive while fatigued. We need to better educate young drivers, but to make this successful “we need them to buy into the learning”. We need to give them simple tools and structures alongside knowledge of the facts.
While fatigue can be relieved temporarily by caffeinated drinks, sleepiness is an overriding need of the brain, and you cannot stop it.
Make a commitment to not drive when fatigued. Set a sleep target. Set good sleep habits. Plan journeys around sleep need. Be a responsible passenger If the body/brain needs to sleep, then it will sleep.
Discussion quotes:
Daisy Cresswell –Founder, Make (Good) Trouble CIC
“The adolescent brain is fundamentally different from those of adult's. It’s about risk and reward. A lot of young people have multiple jobs combined with a huge lifestyle, going out all the time”
Andrew Love – ADI and Vice Chair, ADINJC “Talk
through what choices they have, what
you can do to help them reduce the risk. But it needs to come from them so that they can buy into it and own it. What can they do to have a considered choice rather than a single choice”
Lorna Smith – Safe Road User Officer, Kent County Council
“Influence young people to regard sleep as their enabler and not something that
is preventing them from doing their fun stuff. We need to find ways of accentuating the positives of sleep and a healthy lifestyle in enabling them to enjoy all aspects of their life”
James Gibson –Executive Director, Road Safety GB
“Something we can all do is simplify the messaging, making it personally relatable”
At 70mph, a two second microsleep will see you travel 62m. Fatigue related crashes are more likely to be fatal/ serious injury events
DR SHAUN HELMAN
Shaun is the Chief Scientist at TRL (Transport Research Laboratory). For more than two decades he has focused on transport behaviour and safety and, in particular, road safety, driver training, testing and licensing.
TRL was originally established in 1933 by the UK Government as the Road Research Laboratory, it was privatised in 1996. Its motto and tagline is 'The Future of Transport'.
The price of experience...
Extending the learning to drive process has been a significant topic of discussion for many years
now. In particular, the Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) systems that extend the learning to
drive process through a minimum learning to drive period as well as post-test controls on driving at night and while carrying peer-age passengers (both
high risk situations for new drivers). Despite its use in other countries, from Australia to the US, the British government has repeatedly discussed the concept, but then dropped it. However, GDL continues to be promoted by road safety professionals and motoring organisations. The reason is that the basic facts remain the same:
“Young and novice drivers are over-represented in collisions, and both their young age and relative lack of on-road experience are risk factors that have long been established, as are driving with peer age passengers and driving at night.”
“The evidence tells us that we can reduce collisions by having minimum learning periods, maybe including a minimum number of learning hours, and post-test controls on unsupervised driving at night, and unsupervised driving with peer-age passengers”.
Professional, academic and statistical evidence continues to back these approaches. They remain the key to improving the skills, actions and safety of all new, young drivers. However, without the formal legislative
requirements, the next best option is to encourage new drivers to self-impose these measures whilst they gain the necessary 'on the road' experience and maturity behind the wheel, to be safer, more responsible drivers.
Discussion quotes:
Daisy Cresswell –Founder, Make (Good) Trouble CIC
“Peer passenger restrictions are a real ‘no’ as far as young drivers are concerned. If you want to get to younger people on board, then they have to be involved in the production of the learning materials”
“They should have to learn how to drive with peers in the car. It needs to be interactive and fun and part of the process, but make it all about safety”
Andrew Love – ADI and Vice Chair, ADINJC
“Consider the access that gaining a driving licence provides to them for the rest of their lives - the cost of learning to drive compared to what they can earn post-test, is very small”
We can reduce collisions by having minimum learning periods, maybe including a minimum number of hours
Lisa Skaife – CEO Founder, myDRIVESCHOOL and Road Safety Matters
“In my opinion, ensuring 40 hours of lessons with a professional is better than longer learning periods spent with parents supervising, or placing limited restrictions on new drivers”
Ian Mulligani –Managing Director, Young Driver
“I think if you start them learning younger, just like learning languages, the results are better and last longer. It normalises driving in a way that then reduces their desire to show off to their peers”
TRUSTED PARTNER OF ROAD SAFETY PROFESSIONALS SINCE 2004
FirstCar has been a trusted partner of road safety professionals for almost 20 years, when our first magazine for young drivers was published. Since then, FirstCar have expanded to provide award-winning road safety education for almost all road users – from cyclists to horse riders, older drivers to motorcyclists. In striving towards the goal of helping road safety teams offer innovative and costeffective education, FirstCar are proud to have co-produced the UK’s first road safety VR film and many more since. FirstCar now manage the Immersive Community Education (ICE) Hub, which helps road safety professionals share film, knowledge, and best practise around this emerging technology.
As well as providing the road safety sector with a range of products and services, FirstCar are committed to aiding the sharing of new ideas, research, and technology between those responsible for road user education. Each year, FirstCar hosts Young Driver Focus and ICE Live events, bringing together forwardthinking road safety professionals at prestigious venues to hear speakers talk on a wide variety of issues affecting young drivers and virtual reality.
PROJECT EDWARD
projectedward.org
James created Project EDWARD in 2015 after being inspired on his morning jog. Every Day Without A Road Death has sprinted ahead to become both a national and internationally recognised annual campaign. He has extensive experience in road safety, and was formerly a BBC World Service journalist.
James is joined by Darren Lindsey, who previously spent over 25 years working in communications for Michelin.
Uniting the world of road safety...
In a change to the usual time of the year -
September – Project EDWARD is being held during May to coincide with UN Global Road Safety Week.
Its key theme is to highlight that we are all personally responsible for road safety – ‘safer mobility, everyone’s responsibility’.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), road traffic injures are a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Around 1.3 million people are killed, and as many as 50 million people injured
each year. For those aged five to 29 years, there is no greater threat to their lives. Globally, one of every four deaths occur among pedestrians and cyclists.
Project EDWARD is backed by government, the emergency services, highways agencies, road safety organisations and British businesses. It claims to be the biggest platform for highlighting road safety in the UK.
Road trips, in specially decaled cars, tour the country for the week. Three teams visit various towns and cities, experiencing and
promoting local road safety efforts. This in turn helps to encourage best practice amongst those promoting road safety locally and nationally. The visits are then shared through social media and other channels, spreading the word and inspiring the wider road safety world and individuals to raise their game behind the wheel and in their communities.
The initiative promotes an evidence-led, ‘safe system’ approach to road safety, aspiring to a road traffic system free from death and serious injury.
Follow on social media: #ProjectEDWARD.
YDF'23 IN PICTURES
EDMUND KING
Edmund is a well-known campaigner on all things motoring and road safety. He is president of The AA, chairman of The AA Charitable Trust, a director of DriveTech and a visiting professor of transport at Newcastle University. In a previous role, he also worked for The RAC Foundation.
In 2016 he received an OBE for services to road safety and was inducted into the PRWeek
Courage, conviction and compassion...
Seatbelts, telematics, safer vehicles, sleep, extending the learning to drive process, Project Edward, all these can save lives. It’s
important to continue raising these issues and revisiting established solutions to make sure we are doing as much as we
can, as well as we can, to ensure we reduce crashes, injuries and deaths on all our roads.
Sometimes you do have to be bold and take risks to get your points across.
In our own campaigns at The AA we have used a video of a naked cyclist to get people to ‘Think Bikes’. We used an advertisement playing on the success of drink-drive campaigns over the decades, stating: “You're twice as likely to crash text driving as you are drink driving. You wouldn't drink and drive. Don't text and drive." Radical maybe, but the government still paid for it.
Despite the success of seatbelts, some people still refuse to wear them. 2021 figures show not wearing a seatbelt contributed to 30% of road deaths, a figure that increases to 47% at night. The statistics show that people aged 17 to 29 are the most likely to lose their life when not wearing a seatbelt, and make up 40% of the total for road deaths.
The humble seatbelt is arguably one of the greatest road safety inventions, but they are pointless unless people wear them. A fine for not wearing a seat belt simply isn’t enough and we will continue to push for greater Government focus on what interventions can be usefully instigated, including penalty points, for all legal-age car occupants caught not wearing a seatbelt.
EuroNCAP has saved around 80,000 lives since it was launched in 1997. The hugely powerful motor manufacturing lobby campaigned hard to stop it. It was controversial at the time, but belief, passion and strong will made it happen, and it has made a huge difference to so many motorists, not least young drivers. Sometimes, to be a good campaigner you do need courage and conviction. Talking of courage, there are people out there, even here today, who have shown much more courage than me to make a difference. I had a profile, a stage to work from, but so many individuals do not have any of that and are also dealing with ultimate levels of grief through losing those they love – children, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers….
I can’t imagine being able to do what the likes of Kate Goldsmith (driver distraction/mobile phones), Meera Naran (smart motorways) or Sharron Huddleston (Caitlin’s Campaign, graduated licences) have done. These are three courageous women who have suffered inordinate pain and, still do, but continue to campaign to
To be a good campaigner you need courage and conviction
make a difference in their child’s name.
To be a bold campaigner and to take risks is one thing. However, to do so in memory of your own child, with courage, dignity, determination and success, is truly inspirational.
THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR:
● We can make a difference
● We mustn’t accept almost 5 deaths per day
● We must always question
● We should push for the safest drivers, in the safest cars on the safest roads
● We must push for vision zero
● We should base campaigns on facts, but we should take risks
● We should be radical and we should remember that what we do makes a difference
● We should aim for Every Day Without A Road Death.
ELIZABETH BOX
Elizabeth Box, Research Director at The RAC Foundation, ran a real time, interactive session, allowing the conference attendees to have their say on various topics raised from the event's presentations.
The aim was to try and establish how we might be able to deliver more effective messaging and road safety schemes to young people in the UK.
The following is a brief snapshot of live audience responses generated on the day, utilising this new, interactive and stimulating smartphone powered polling tool. racfoundation.org
