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Telematics insurance provider insurethebox would much rather dangle carrots than use a stick when it comes to young motorists and addressing road safety.
“We don’t see a curfew on driving as a workable or fair solution,” said head of pricing Sarah Vaughan, in response to the proposed ‘Graduated Driving Licence’ that could prohibit drivers aged 17 to 24 – who account for 18% of crashes on UK roads – from getting behind the wheel after dark. For insurethebox, it’s a punitive approach that won’t even be effective.
While it welcomes the government’s recognition of the one-stop driving test’s flaw, the telematics insurer does not support the push for a night curfew. Instead, it advocates increased awareness and engagement in order to “empower” new drivers and facilitate the management of driving behaviours.
“Our 3.5 billion miles of telematics data does show that driving after 11pm significantly increases the risk of an accident for young motorists,” noted Vaughan. “There are, however, numerous other road risks that new drivers struggle with and unless we help drivers to improve their skills, we are effectively asking new drivers to ‘learn on the job’ at the potentially very high price of other people’s lives.”
She said insurethebox aids young motorists in becoming safer drivers by providing them tools and information they can use to improve. It also offers cheaper car insurance for those who navigate along safely – an incentive instead of what it believes will essentially penalise the concerned demographic.
“Imposing punitive measures on young drivers could have an unfair impact on their lives, such as hampering their earning potential if they work in jobs which require night shifts or late-night duties like shelf filling at supermarkets or bar work,” explained the pricing head. “There are also questions around how this proposal will affect different locations, given that darkness falls as early as 5pm in certain regions of England – even earlier during winter – and may last until 7:30am, when many young motorists will need to have left home for school or work.”
