Experience before age when it comes to driving safety

We’ve all heard stories of 17 year olds passing their driving test, jumping straight into their car and then getting a bit too confident and having an accident. However, you don’t tend to hear stories about 25 or 30 year old new drivers doing the same, so are their driving records actually any different?

Part of the Admiral Group, Bell, which specialises in saving money on insurance for drivers with zero no claims bonus, looked at the claim frequency of its policyholders that had passed their driving test within the last 5 years, and saw that maybe they’re not so different after all.

Drivers aged 17-21 years old actually make claims less frequently than those aged 22-25 and 26-30 years old. It is only when we reach the 31-35 age category that the youngest drivers fall behind, however, only by a very small amount. When we reach the 46-50 age category, those drivers make claims only slightly less frequently than the 17-21s.

Bell managing director, Sue Longthorn, commented, “Our research shows that age isn’t the biggest contributing factor, instead, inexperience is. Anyone passing their test, whatever their age, should always be careful as it takes time to get use to driving competently on your own.

This is also supported by the fact that the average claim frequency for all of our policyholders who passed their tests within the last 5 years is 13% higher than for those that passed their tests more than 5 years ago – so experience definitely counts.”

Issue date: 12th June 2006