{"id":5389,"date":"2011-03-16T23:51:56","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T23:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=5389"},"modified":"2011-03-16T23:51:56","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T23:51:56","slug":"driving-age-to-rise-to-18-in-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=5389","title":{"rendered":"Driving Age to Rise to 18 in Northern Ireland?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Belfast Telegraph reckons the minimum driving age<\/a> could rise to 18 under proposals…<\/p>\n

\n

…to cut the carnage on Northern Ireland\u2019s roads. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The proposals would also see restrictions on high performance cars, curfews, and a minimum number of lessons before being able to take the test.<\/p>\n

Apparently, 17-24 year olds make up 15% of the driving population and yet they account for 38% of all fatal collisions. Those numbers got me thinking about the American problem I reported recently<\/a>. The Americans allow driving from as young as 14, and their statistics report that “teens” account for 7% of the driving population, but 20% of all driving deaths.<\/p>\n

How do the two compare?<\/p>\n

Let’s imagine we have 100,000 drivers and 10,000 fatalities in some time period.<\/p>\n

The NI figures mean that 15,000 17-24 year olds would be responsible for 3,800 deaths. That works out to 0.25 deaths per 17-24 year old.<\/p>\n

The American figures mean that 7,000 “teens” would be responsible for 2,000 deaths. And that works out to 0.28 deaths per “teen”.<\/p>\n

It’s not that different, is it? And I bet the UK mainland isn’t much different, either.<\/p>\n

So is raising the driving age the answer? Is extra lessons the answer? I’m not so sure. Everything points to it being the same in every civilised country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Belfast Telegraph reckons the minimum driving age could rise to 18 under proposals… …to cut the carnage on Northern Ireland\u2019s roads. The proposals would also see restrictions on high performance cars, curfews, and a minimum number of lessons before being able to take the test. Apparently, 17-24 year olds make up 15% of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-world-related"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t