Are youger drivers unfairly discriminated against?

ADIDriving

I (and possibly the younger learners) would like to hear the views of over 20s with full licences.
Minister Varadkar has quoted a statistic in a speach encougaging young people to be carefull on the roads after their exams. The sentiment is fine but I always find these stats irrelevant.
It states that 7% of road deaths were between 16 and 20 inclusive. But if I have done my basic maths right, that is fairly average!
Taking a short but reasonable age spread of 0 to 65, 7% is a five year spread (eg 16-20). There is going to be less deaths (thankfully) of children, under 16. So the age spread could push up. There are far more 16-20 year olds then say 56-60 year olds. Might they also be more active on the roads.
Do these 16 to 20 year olds deserve this bad press? Do they deserve the high insurance.
PS: I have the full statement from Leo Varadkar here.

Galwayguy35

ADIDriving wrote: »

I (and possibly the younger learners) would like to hear the views of over 20s with full licences.
Minister Varadkar has quoted a statistic in a speach encougaging young people to be carefull on the roads after their exams. The sentiment is fine but I always find these stats irrelevant.
It states that 7% of road deaths were between 16 and 20 inclusive. But if I have done my basic maths right, that is fairly average!
Taking a short but reasonable age spread of 0 to 65, 7% is a five year spread (eg 16-20). There is going to be less deaths (thankfully) of children, under 16. So the age spread could push up. There are far more 16-20 year olds then say 56-60 year olds. Might they also be more active on the roads.
Do these 16 to 20 year olds deserve this bad press? Do they deserve the high insurance.
PS: I have the full statement from Leo Varadkar here.

Yes they do, young lads have a tendency to put the foot down and take risks because they don't see the danger.
I'm not preaching here, I was one of these guys and it took a crash 15 years ago due to me speeding and drinking to make me see sense.

biko

The younger drivers get bad press for a reason, and this is me speaking from experience and stats.
I was a young male driver and the amount of stupid things we got up to you wouldn't believe. Both from lack of experience and also from being young and "invulnerable".

As evidence - these were the drivers responsible for fatal or serious injury collisions
by age and gender in the Republic of Ireland from 1996 to 2004.


As you can see it's not an age issue, it's a gender issue. Males up to 35 still cause all the accidents that counts.

There is a reason ads like "Slow down boys" and "He drives, she dies" exist.
Don't mention those in the Motors forum though, they disagree strongly (being the target group of those 2 campaigns).

Victor

See page 14-15 here: http://www.mayococo.ie/en/media/Media,10122,en.pdf

The main over-representations are young adult male car users and old age pedestrians.

Also this old thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054971409 had this image attached:

ADIDriving

On this link to the RSAs site, look at table 19. It is a newer(2008), national version of the charts you have shown. It shows the 25 to 34s as being almost(ish) as likely to die on the roads as the three younger groups collectively 15 to 24. The 25 to 34 age group is exceptionally bad for cyclists, both peddal and motor.