Do you consider this Donegal Judge biased against young male drivers?

limklad

independent.ie wrote:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/judge-bans-man-from-driving-for-25-years-2323793.html

Judge Hughes warned young motorists that those who flout the law and endanger the public would receive similar sentences if they appeared before him.
“I want the message to go out loud and clear in Donegal, that if there are any further cases like this before me they will be treated in the same way,” he said
"I’m not tolerating young men driving around like this and endangering the lives of innocent members of the public.”
Judge Hughes asked Inspector Colm Nevin at Letterkenny District Court to look into whether or not he had the power to impose curfews on young drivers.
“I would rather impose a curfew on a young driver convicted of a first offence, so they cannot drive between the hours of 8pm and 7am or carry passengers, rather than disqualify them and affect their employment or education prospects,” Judge Hughes said.
Inspector Nevin told the judge he would investigate the issue on his behalf.

I consider this Judge to very Bias. Why should he hit down harder at young drivers. What about arrogant or ignorant older or women drivers who put others at risks, injuries or kill others with poor driving.
Should older and women drivers have curfew and long term sentences applied to them too if found to be reckless driving on our roads?

This Judge comments is very focus on one group only in his comments in which is a dangerous attitude to prevail on the General Public which it is only young male drivers that kill people.

With RSA statistics over the years, it shows that are far more than young male drivers who kill people on our roads.
http://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/Our-Research/Collision-Statistics/

challengemaster

Tbh, I thought the sentence he handed out was pure bull.... convicted rapists/murderers get off easier than that.

efb

challengemaster wrote: »

Tbh, I thought the sentence he handed out was pure bull.... convicted rapists/murderers get off easier than that.

Not repeat offenders, and convicted murderers get a statutory life sentence

ardmacha

Should older and women drivers have curfew and long term sentences applied to them too if found to be reckless driving on our roads?

Any repeat offender should be punished. The sentence was 22 months which is closer to the sentence for not having a TV licence than to a sentence for murder. Dangerous driving is a form of attempted murder in any case.
Curfews are perfectly appropriate if the offences take place at a certain time of day more than others.

corktina

the Judge is trying to save lives by sending out a strong message. Good for him (no doubt there will be an apppeal though and the actual sentance reduced)

L1011

Preventing some driving between 2000 and 0700 DOES limit their employment prospects in a real job, obviously not if you're a bewigged unfireable judge.

123easy

Fair play to him. Its about time they came down ridiculously hard on people convicted of dangerous driving up there.

That guy was banned for 25 years. If you choose to drive in a dangerous manner with no regrd for other people and likely to result in the death of other innocent road users then a 25 year ban is the appropriate medicine for these tossers

limklad

limklad wrote: »

I consider this Judge to very Bias.

I'm very Happiness.

Anyway, I think it was fair play to him, especially considering all the previous convictions as mentioned on the AH thread?
Maybe if more of these eejits got caught and arrested then there would be less trouble on the road.

JohnC.

Screw him. He is a repeat offender. No sympathy for the fool. He is repeatedly risking peoples lives. I'd rather he be banned for 25 years than let him loose to drive like that until he kills someone.

If you don't like the idea of a curfew, it's easily avoided. Don't drive like a prick. Job done. No curfew.

I can't stand this excuse that "I need to drive for my job." If it is so important, you are a bloody idiot for putting it at risk like that and you deserve everything you get. Anyone who utters those words should have the book thrown at them.

MagicSean

limklad wrote: »

I consider this Judge to very Bias. Why should he hit down harder at young drivers. What about arrogant or ignorant older or women drivers who put others at risks, injuries or kill others with poor driving.
Should older and women drivers have curfew and long term sentences applied to them too if found to be reckless driving on our roads?

This Judge comments is very focus on one group only in his comments in which is a dangerous attitude to prevail on the General Public which it is only young male drivers that kill people.

With RSA statistics over the years, it shows that are far more than young male drivers who kill people on our roads.
http://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/Our-Research/Collision-Statistics/

Is Donegal not the place were a young male driver recently killed 6 people and not long ago another one killed a Garda? It seems to be quite an escalating problem in the county.

furtzy

Fair play to him and I hope he's true to his word. You really have to see the suicidal driving by these little scumbags up there to believe it. its a scourge on society that needs to be wiped out. If the various RSA campaigns aren't working then hopefully this judges actions will have the desired effect

Mr. Manager

Clearly he has no regard for road users. Why should he even be let back on the roads in 25 years? Just so he can go out and do it again.

I say fair play to the Judge for this. No doubt though it will not stick and he will probably only serve 6-8 month driving ban and maybe 8-12 months in prison.

What will it take for people to wake the fcuk up to road safety? I for one think this is a great starter.

Idbatterim

fair play to the judge, for anyone who has a problem with it, id like to see if one or several of your family members or a loved ones were killed in an accident by one of these lunatics, what your reaction would be! We should adopt a total no tolerance stance on these idiots. The same with the gobs**tes who throw stuff at cars, there should be serious consequences, if they are underage, go after the parents...

Kristopherus

Hopefully all other District Judges will see the light and act likewise.

Idbatterim

is there mandatory sentencing for reckless driving? how about for over loading cars etc?

Mr. Manager

Idbatterim wrote: »

is there mandatory sentencing for reckless driving? how about for over loading cars etc?

I'm sure I'll be called a hypocrite for this but 2 and a half years ago I was brought to court for reckless and dangerous driving. I never yielded coming onto a roundabout. It was a T-Junction and I was on the main road, no one was on the road apart from the Gardai (obv I didn't see them down the way)

Anyways, when in court I explained to the judge that I did not find it reckless and dangerous driving, fair enough it wasn't exactly safe driving, but I certainly wouldn't have branded it as reckless and dangerous.

As a result I was given 4 penalty points and made pay a €450 fine.

djimi

What did the bloke in question do to be convicted? Hes a repeat offender yeah?

If he has been caught dangerous driving multiple times and hes still at it then hes obviously not responsible enough to be entrusted to drive so fair play to the judge for removing his right to be behind the wheel. Maybe if more of these morons thought they would be in their 50s before they are allowed behind the wheel of a car again it might make them think twice about the way they act.

conneem-TT

k_mac wrote: »

Is Donegal not the place were a young male driver recently killed 6 people and not long ago another one killed a Garda? It seems to be quite an escalating problem in the county.

Are you privy to the Garda report to the incident or just speaking conjecture? He was guilty of driving an overloaded car but has never been said to have caused the accident in a public report. Maybe you would like to help out and come to a conclusion who was at fault in the following recent incidents that got far less attention maybe because they did not involve young men, or maybe they are not as clear cut because they do not involve young men;

http://eecho.ie/news/ireland/woman-killed-in-sligo-crash-471217.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0710/breaking9.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0423/1224268953688.html

Back on the topic of the OP. If he was a repeat offended he definitely deserved a stiff punishment but as someone says 2 posts above, dangerous driving is not alway lunatic boy racer behaviour.

What I feel is wrong about this is that he is a repeat offender and all of a sudden bang gets a prison sentence and 25 year ban. There was no effort made to change his behaviour after he was originally caught the first time. Like the judge says he would like a facility to set maybe a 3-6 month probation and re-educatoin test for first time offenders, then a small ban ~6 month for repeat offenders, then community service and a big ban ~3-5 years for serious offenders.

SeaFields

This guy was pursued by Gardai across 8 town lands at speeds of up to 80mph before the Gardai stopped the chase due to the danger to the public. He took corners on the wrong side of the road and drove through a stop sign.

The judge wasn't being biased against young male drivers...he was handing down a justified sentence to a criminal.

I think some media put a spin on it leaving out the details of the case in order to say it was a lesson to all young male drivers. Here's a link of an article with more details on the case

conneem-TT

SeaFields wrote: »

This guy was pursued by Gardai across 8 town lands at speeds of up to 80mph before the Gardai stopped the chase due to the danger to the public. He took corners on the wrong side of the road and drove through a stop sign.

The judge wasn't being biased against young male drivers...he was handing down a justified sentence to a criminal.

I think some media put a spin on it leaving out the details of the case in order to say it was a lesson to all young male drivers. Here's a link of an article with more details on the case

Thanks for the link. I can now see clearly why a prison sentence was issued. Dangerous driving, not stopping for Gardai ect.. That guy seriously and repeatedly endangered people and does not sound like that type of person that community service or re-education like I suggested in my post above would change very much. It was obviously more than just a normal case of dangerous driving like the first link made out.

baldbear

Fair play to the judge. This young gurrier deserved it. He's been breaking the law since he was 16 and sounds like a little scum bag.
Not stopping for the gaurd and going through stop signs could cause some innocent persons death.

And the cheek of him telling the gaurd he would be “pleading not guilty all the way.” Little bollíx.

johndaman66

I may be wrong but I think one of the main things the OP is taking issue with is the judge branding of young male drivers and sort of tarring them all with the same brush. In this day of political correctness I think the judge should have at least chose his words more carefully.

Granted there are many wreckless young male drivers on the road but not all of them are either, far from it. Im hardly in the category of young male driver anymore being 29 years of age but having being a driver for the last 10 years I have obeyed the rules of the road as best I can and never partake in this crack of meeting up in car parks and filling station forecourts and doing burnouts and handbrake turns etc. I can say the same of many of my friends and relations in and around my own age. Furthermore I know a few women drivers who could give many of the wreckless young male drivers a good run for their money.

Again I may be wrong but I'm just thinking the judge may have had a friend/ relation/ nephew/ grandson etc. killed in an accident in which a young male driver was liable and thats the reason he may be biased. I still think it does not excuse his choice of words though.

Pete_Cavan

conneem-TT wrote: »

What I feel is wrong about this is that he is a repeat offender and all of a sudden bang gets a prison sentence and 25 year ban. There was no effort made to change his behaviour after he was originally caught the first time. Like the judge says he would like a facility to set maybe a 3-6 month probation and re-educatoin test for first time offenders, then a small ban ~6 month for repeat offenders, then community service and a big ban ~3-5 years for serious offenders.

Re-education? The driver of the car is in complete control of his own behaviour so why should it be up to the judge or anyone else to change his behaviour? People should take responsibility for their own actions and the only way to make them do this is by making them suffer the consequences of their actions. The guy in question was up in court before for a similar offence and yet he still thinks he can ignore the laws in relation to driving. A good stint in prison and 25 years off the raods is exactly the kind of re-education this guy needs. He obviously didnt learn after the first time he was caught but I'll bet he will have learned his leason this time. If he did not want this to happen it could have been avoided by simply obeying the rules of the road. Fair play to the judge for making the roads safer for all of us.

Theanswers

One thing nobody realises is that:

In the accident in Donegal in which 6 young people died. The womens who's car was hit by the passet was infact overtaking the 'old' man who died. She was on his side of the road.

Now i understand that he should not be overloading... But it's not entirely his fault. His car clipped hers. The airbag went off and he could see. Therefore crashed....

Not automatically blame him...

She was arrested and question by the guards about what i've just said..

ardmacha

There was no effort made to change his behaviour

It is the driver's responsibility to change his own behaviour, not anyone else's.
Not all reckless drivers are young males and other people should be subject to similar penalties.

guil

Kristopherus wrote: »

Hopefully all other District Judges will see the light and act likewise.

ya can be sure judge zaiden in naas will follow suit, he's pretty heavy handed for any motoring offence and rightly so
the sooner these muppets are off the road the better

bmw535d

Theanswers wrote: »

One thing nobody realises is that:

In the accident in Donegal in which 6 young people died. The womens who's car was hit by the passet was infact overtaking the 'old' man who died. She was on his side of the road.

Now i understand that he should not be overloading... But it's not entirely his fault. His car clipped hers. The airbag went off and he could see. Therefore crashed....

Not automatically blame him...

She was arrested and question by the guards about what i've just said..

thats not strictly true.7 young people died. and the old woman may have been cutting the corner as alot of people do on that corner.she overtook the old man some 500 meters before the crash.

Fey!

Given the guys track record, I agree with the judge in this case.

As for the multiple death crash in Donegal, has there been any official report on it yet? If not, then why not leave the conjecture until then?

conneem-TT

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Re-education? The driver of the car is in complete control of his own behaviour so why should it be up to the judge or anyone else to change his behaviour? People should take responsibility for their own actions and the only way to make them do this is by making them suffer the consequences of their actions. The guy in question was up in court before for a similar offence and yet he still thinks he can ignore the laws in relation to driving. A good stint in prison and 25 years off the raods is exactly the kind of re-education this guy needs. He obviously didnt learn after the first time he was caught but I'll bet he will have learned his leason this time. If he did not want this to happen it could have been avoided by simply obeying the rules of the road. Fair play to the judge for making the roads safer for all of us.

ardmacha wrote: »

It is the driver's responsibility to change his own behaviour, not anyone else's.
Not all reckless drivers are young males and other people should be subject to similar penalties.

What I am saying is that he was known to have acted dangerously before and was not given a punishment/ban to discourage that kind of behaviour. If it was nipped in the bud so to speak, (probably not in this case as from the second link after my post we can see what type of person it was) and he was given a curfew maybe this instance where he tryed to evade the Gardai might have been avoided. Like the Judge says, he would like another form of punishment facility for drivers (albeit more minor offenders than this guy) as we can see from post #16 "dangerous driving' offences do not always involve maniac behaviour.

daveharnett

limklad wrote: »

Do you consider this Donegal Judge biased against young male drivers?

Are young male drivers are biased against trees?

In all seriousness, I do take the OP's point. While his actions are understandable (and even laudable) on a human level, this 'judgement' strikes me as quite unprofessional - the only material effect will be to waste the court's time with an inevitable (and inevitably successful) appeal.

Oil_drip

The time has come for all drivers to realise that they use a car to get from point A to Point B. If you cannot follow the rules then dont drive. A big applause for the Judge for setting the precedent. Now all be aware if you cannot do the time then dont do the crime.

conneem-TT

daveharnett wrote: »

Are young male drivers are biased against trees?

In all seriousness, I do take the OP's point. While his actions are understandable (and even laudable) on a human level, this 'judgement' strikes me as quite unprofessional - the only material effect will be to waste the court's time with an inevitable (and inevitably successful) appeal.

I don't think an appeal would be sucessful in this case. The link posted by SeaFields gives much more information to the incident and how serious it was.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0902/1224278050831.html

the OP's link focused on the Judge's verdict and opinion and made it out to be an overly heavy sentence when in fact if you read the link above it involved more than the average case of dangerous driving and sounded like something you would see on those PoliceCameraAction programmes in the UK.

limklad

There is too many comments to quote So I am going to leave a general rely here.

It does not matter what age the person who was behind the wheel or where they are from. The Law should be applied without discrimination to everybody despite the age or sex.
The State has signed and ratified The Lisbon Treaty with a Referendum and along with it we also Ratified the Charter of Human Rights of the European Union which was part of the Lisbon Treaty in which is now part of the Irish Constitution under our obligation to Membership of the European Union.

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union wrote:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_of_the_European_Union
CHAPTER III. EQUALITY

Article 20. Equality before the law
Everyone is equal before the law.
Article 21. Non-discrimination

1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.

Donegal Judge - Inpependent.ie wrote:

"I’m not tolerating young men driving around like this and endangering the lives of innocent members of the public.”

My argument is if you are going to curfew or any strong sentences to anybody for reckless and dangerous Driving, it should be applied to everybody who is found guilty no matter the age or sex. The Judge says he will curfew young drivers. Yet they are many many more drivers who everyday are dangerous and reckless on our roads, endangering the lives of innocent members of the public including mothers endangering their own kids. So it that judge going to only applied the full extent of the law to young members of the public and a reduce sentence on the rest of the public. If so he/she is in breach of our obligations of Membership to the EU. I would also say that that judge is bias and may put his/her conviction unsafe, if the young driver legal team finds differences of that Judge sentences between drivers of various age fro the same offence.

jacksyhoulahan

Fact is young male drivers are by a mile the highest percentage of killers on the road.
I remember driving first (not until i was 22 cos i couldn't afford it) and all you want to do is show off and drive fast and you are also a lot more reckless when you are that age anyway.
I couldn't care less about employment prospects of young male drivers (get a lift or get a bus), I do care about innocent people getting killed.
That Judge was totally correct in his judgement.
Charter of Human rights? How about a right not to be innocently killed by someone gone mad on the road (am i right in saying 70% young male drivers)

conneem-TT

jacksyhoulahan wrote: »

. . .
Charter of Human rights? How about a right not to be innocently killed by someone gone mad on the road (am i right in saying 70% young male drivers)

70%

Well by looking at the following stats then there must be a very high percentage of dangerous drivers in other age and sex groups.

Drivers Injured or Killed in Road Accidents (taken from RSA Collision Fact Books)

- 2008
Age . . . . . Male . . . . Female

18-24 . . . . 498 . . . . . 396
25-34 . . . . 490 . . . . . 472
35-44 . . . . 327 . . . . . 287
45-54 . . . . 198 . . . . . 217

- 2007
Age . . . . . Male . . . . Female

18-24 . . . . 507 . . . . . 365
25-34 . . . . 419 . . . . . 436
35-44 . . . . 299 . . . . . 299
45-54 . . . . 180 . . . . . 198

stevenmu

jacksyhoulahan wrote: »

Fact is young male drivers are by a mile the highest percentage of killers on the road.

Correlation does not imply causation.

But if you really want to use percentages I think you'll find that 'drivers who engage in dangerous behavior' cause a far higher percentage of road deaths than 'young male drivers'. Clearly the sensible thing to do is to target such behavior rather than to target people by age or gender who may or not be dangerous drivers, while missing a missing a huge section of drivers who may be extremely dangerous but do not fall into the set age/gender category.

stevenmu

stevenmu wrote: »

Fact is young male drivers are by a mile the highest percentage of killers on the road.

Correlation does not imply causation.

Just to expand on this a little more. According to this graph:


If we forgot all about young male drivers and increased our imports of Mexican lemons we could significantly increase road safety. Of course this is clearly a ridiculous idea, but that's what numbers say!

My point here is that we can't just take raw numbers and expect to form rational effective policies based upon them, numbers on their own are meaningless. What is needed is to interpret the figures correctly and in a way that has meaning, and even more importantly to gather meaningful statistics in the first place.






And since we're talking about statistics here's an obligatory XKCD:

Star Lord

jacksyhoulahan wrote: »

I remember driving first ... and all you want to do is show off and drive fast and you are also a lot more reckless when you are that age anyway.

I've been driving since I was 17, and have never felt the urge to show off by driving fast/recklessly.
[edit]I'm 30 now... AND I'm from Donegal.

johndaman66

jacksyhoulahan wrote: »

Fact is young male drivers are by a mile the highest percentage of killers on the road.
I remember driving first (not until i was 22 cos i couldn't afford it) and all you want to do is show off and drive fast and you are also a lot more reckless when you are that age anyway.

With all due respect I think that just like the Donegal judge you are too eager to make generalisations and assumptions. I have found out from past experiences that making assumptions can be an unyielding and even costly exercise, whether financially or otherwise. I started driving at 20 but unlike yourself my only intention was to use my car as a means of independance, getting too and from work and what not. I can say the same of many of my friends and piers. Granted I do have friends and know of people who are maniacs behind the wheel and although a considerable proportion of them are young male drivers not all of them are either.

jacksyhoulahan wrote: »

I couldn't care less about employment prospects of young male drivers (get a lift or get a bus), I do care about innocent people getting killed.
That Judge was totally correct in his judgement.

I do agree with your general sentiment on dangerous driving and that of the judge and his judgement in this case. However, I do take exception to him singling out young male drivers and making comments which are probably very politically incorrect for a judge to make. I agree that anybody found guilty of downright wreckless driving should ultimately be put of the road for a right long spell whether they are young or old, male or female and as you say let them get the bus or a lift. The fact that they are a young male or otherwise should not prejudice such a case though.

danjo

conneem-TT wrote: »

70%

Well by looking at the following stats then there must be a very high percentage of dangerous drivers in other age and sex groups.

Interesting stats. However have only cursory application to the discussion. Quoting numbers for young drivers killed does not equate to accidents caused by young drivers.

conneem-TT

danjo wrote: »

Interesting stats. However have only cursory application to the discussion. Quoting numbers for young drivers killed does not equate to accidents caused by young drivers.

It is the only thing that we have to work on unless we use anecdotal evidence. Even if you include accidents that young people caused and were not injured, why would one assume that they would account for a hugely weighted proportion compared to any other demographic because of a stereotype maybe?

Incidents involving young male drivers get more attention in the media, case in point over the recent month's tradgedies. Were any of the following incidents given big features on the 6 o'clock news?

http://eecho.ie/news/ireland/woman-killed-in-sligo-crash-471217.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0710/breaking9.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0423/1224268953688.html

And if I include my anecdotal experience, I would have to say that I do not notice on a whole young people acting dangerous more often than any other demographic. In my recent memory I can only think of middle aged people that have come out infront of me on roundabout's and tailgaiting behind me.

SilverBell

Young drivers are the worst according to this paper. Here is the abstract.


Young drivers, especially males, have relatively more accidents than other drivers. Young driver accidents also have somewhat different characteristics to those of other drivers; they include single vehicle accidents involving loss of control; excess speed for conditions; accidents during darkness; accidents on single carriageway rural roads; and accidents while making cross-flow turns (i.e. turning right in the UK, equivalent to a left turn in the US and continental Europe).
A sample of over 3000 accident cases was considered from midland British police forces, involving drivers aged 17–25 years, and covering a two year period. Four types of accident were analysed: right-turns; rear-end shunts; loss of control on curves; and accidents in darkness. Loss of control on curves and accidents in darkness were found to be a particular problem for younger drivers. It was found that cross-flow turn accidents showed the quickest improvement with increasing driver experience, whereas accidents occurring in darkness with no street lighting showed the slowest rate of improvement. ‘Time of day’ analyses suggested that the problems of accidents in darkness are not a matter of visibility, but a consequence of the way young drivers use the roads at night. There appears to be a large number of accidents associated with voluntary risk-taking behaviours of young drivers in ‘recreational’ driving.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V5S-4JN2P23-1&_user=103681&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1455064820&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000007920&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=103681&md5=49d571e4c2297b197481f18e38124a18&searchtype=a

conneem-TT wrote: »

It is the only thing that we have to work on unless we use anecdotal evidence.

conneem-TT

SilverBell wrote: »

Young drivers are the worst according to this paper. Here is the abstract.

......

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V5S-4JN2P23-1&_user=103681&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1455064820&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000007920&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=103681&md5=49d571e4c2297b197481f18e38124a18&searchtype=a

Yes, they are involved in more than the average amount of accidents but so are young women compared to their elder counterparts (in a relative term, also remembering that there are 36% more men with licences than women in Ireland) as can be even seen from the stats I posted. My post was a follow on to the poster above suggesting that 70% of young males are dangerous drivers and a popular conception with many that young males are the only danger on our roads and that it is ok to tar every young male with that brush.

The main focus of the paper in your post was to look the type of accidents in which young drivers are involved in the UK. It only looked at a sample of accidents involving only 17-25 year olds, both male and female.

Lets look at what we can see from the abstract, it highlight's that loss of control on curves and darkness were common factors. Now these ring bells with the recent accidents that have gotten media attention here and I have suggested in other posts that in the case of our incidents the following factors must also be admitted a possibility;

- inexperienced drivers
- travelling on small rural roads, poor road markings -> where they were neither taught or tested on.
- in the early hours/night, -> tiredness, also not tested on the changes in driving behaviour you need to make to drive in the country at night
- not in "souped up "boyracer" mobiles" but in normal commuter cars
- cars full of distractions, -> i.e. cars full of young mates/friends giddy after a night out

it does not take reckless behaviour to induce an accident senario with those ingredients, a couple of seconds distraction and you can lose control of a car on a bend or at night on roads with poor markings.

Now lets look at it from another angle, if you took a sample of people with 1 year driving experience and another of people with 10 years, which group would you logically select if asked which were most likely to have the more instances of accidents over a certain time period, the people with less experience. It must be logically expected that accident rates will decrease with more experience.

I was just commenting that I do not follow the opinion that the majority of young males are dangerous as alluded to by some. I posted above a few articles of recent accidents involving women, these did not get near as much attention in the media as the recent accidents involving men. So I believe there in an incorrect stereotype being reinforced by the media.