Seat Young Driver Course Has Positive Effect On Accident Rates

MILTON KEYNES, UNITED KINGDOM – Nov 26, 2012: The pioneering Seat Young Driver programme is proving to have a positive effect on accident rates among its participants.

That’s the pleasing conclusion of research into the subject by Young Driver Training Ltd, the company behind SEAT Young Driver.

A survey among teenagers that have taken the groundbreaking driver training course has revealed that their accident rate is markedly reduced when compared to the overall rate of newly qualified drivers in the UK.

Statistics from the Department for Transport show that two out of ten newly qualified drivers will crash within six months of passing the test, and drivers aged 17-24 are involved in one in four incidents of serious injury or death on the road, despite accounting for one in eight full UK driving licences.

By comparison, of those that responded to a Young Driver Survey and had held a full licence for six months or more, fewer than one in ten had been involved in an accident behind the wheel: 9%, which is less than half the national rate.

Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) chief examiner Peter Rodger said: “It’s good to see early indications that pre-driver courses are producing safer drivers. The IAM has always felt that training drivers over a longer period of time and catching them when their attitudes towards driving are still developing is key to producing a safer driver.

“Facilitating more time to develop skills of observation and anticipation, and to build a broad experience of different traffic conditions, will ultimately save lives.”

Kim Stanton, Marketing Director for Young Driver, added: “Our research, along with data from the Swedish Government, shows that training young people to drive at an early age when they’re much more receptive to road safety messages really could save hundreds of lives per year.”

Seat Young Driver is the only driver training course of its type in the UK, offering anyone aged between 11 and 17 years old the chance to get behind the wheel with a qualified ADI instructor and learn how to drive.

Research undertaken for the Swedish Government found that establishing a minimum number of hours of pre-test driving experience slashed accidents among young drivers by 40%. Seat Young Driver was set up in 2009 based on this research, and remains the only course of its type in the UK.

By the end of 2012 over 60,000 young people will have taken the Seat Young Driver course, each of them equipped to go into their driving lessons at 17 having learned the fundamentals of driving.

Lessons take place throughout the UK, from Southampton to Glasgow, at venues with facilities for driver training away from the public highway. Locations have included The NEC in Birmingham, Brent Cross in London and Metro Centre, Gateshead.

The course includes the very basics of manoeuvring a car, to more complex, real-world skills like overtaking, using a roundabout and reverse parking.