As anybody who’s ever been a teenager before will know all too well, the world finds it curiously difficult to trust young people. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in regards to recreational drugs, diet, exercise, technology, sex or even motoring – if you’re under the age of twenty five, you’re clearly considered to be a potential liability. Whilst this might not be a very just state of affairs, it is a perfectly understandable one. It also happens to be rooted in the need to protect not only those affected by the actions of young people, but the young people themselves. When it comes to an issue like car insurance, there’s a lot more than just pride on the line.
According to the road safety charity Brake, data from the UK shows a clear link between age and the risk of serious road collisions. In Great Britain, an eighteen year old driver is more than three times as likely to be involved in a crash as a forty year old. It has also been revealed that one in five young drivers get involved in a collision within six months of passing their test. In most areas of the country, make drivers have a much higher crash rate than female drivers – between the hours of 2am and 5am, the risk of a serious collision increases by a factor of seventeen.
This information is designed not to berate all young drivers into feeling guilty about being on the road, it’s simply meant to make the reality of the situation clear, says Forbes.com journalist Tanya Mohn. It is, of course, wholly untrue to suggest that all young drivers take unsafe or illegal risks on the road. There are millions of extremely responsible young motorists out there who do genuinely care about the consequences of their actions – there is no doubting the fact that the weight of the insurance industry falls on these responsible drivers either. Yet, it isn’t as if there aren’t any ways to offset the stigma of being a young driver. In Great Britain, all motorists are annually rewarded for avoiding crashes, breakdowns and collisions. With a reliable insurer like Direct Asia, it’s possible to watch your premium fall as the number of accident free years increases.
Whilst young drivers will always have to pay slightly higher premiums than more experienced ones, it is still possible find a great deal on your car insurance. If you’ve recently passed your test and are looking to get out on the road, the best thing that you can do is have a chat with a helpful team of experts. They’ll be able to advise you on what the best possible course of action happens to be – whether or not you should merge with a parental policy, whether or not you should pay upfront or in instalments and whether or not your chosen car is set to trigger an insurance hike. The first step to making a good decision is all about having the right information, so don’t shy away from asking questions of your insurer, says Telegraph journalist David Williams.
It’s clear that all of this talk about young drivers being inherently dangerous could even be somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy. If you’re constantly told that you’re a terrible driver, how are you ever going to gain the confidence to become a really good one? To put it simply, you’ve got to think about your own actions – your motoring career is your own personal venture and it should stay that way. It’s all about staying safe, building up trust and paying your dues – even if it doesn’t seem at all fair to have to do so in the first place.