Young Driver
Young drug-drivers on the increase
Tue, 25 Apr 2006
The price of young driver car insurance is unlikely to improve with the news that drug taking has become widespread among young drivers in the UK.
A staggering 20 per cent of young drivers say that they drive under the influence of drugs every day, according to a survey conducted by driver's group the RAC Foundation and Max Power magazine.
The survey found that 59 per cent of young drivers had driven after smoking marijuana, while 37 per cent admitted to driving after taking cocaine.
Over two thirds of those questioned also believed that they were unlikely to be caught driving under the influence of drugs.
The findings are a blow to road safety campaigners. It is estimated that 18 per cent of drivers who died on the roads between 1996 and 2001 had illegal drugs in their system, and it is believed that drug-driving is now twice as common as drink-driving.
Drink-driving has been reduced greatly in recent years, thanks to government campaigns that have changed driver attitudes to alcohol.
Young drivers are among the most accident prone on Britain's roads, with National Roads Authority figures showing that male drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 are "to a large extent" responsible for about 60 per cent of all injury-causing accidents; figures that only serve to push up the cost of young driver car insurance.
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