It is widely recognised that young drivers are over-represented in crashes that occur at night and at the weekend. What is not generally known is to what extent this over-representation is associated with the youth and inexperience of these drivers, higher exposure at these times, or higher exposure to riskier driving environments at these times. This paper attempts to shed light on these questions by fitting a model to crash and exposure data that includes information on distances driven by type of road. It is shown that young drivers have higher risk of crash involvement per distance driven than other age groups for all the driving situations considered. Particularly high risks were estimated for young males driving on major urban roads on weekend nights. Thus, although younger drivers do drive at higher risk times and places than other driver groups, only a small proportion of their difference in risk compared with middle-aged drivers can be explained by these patterns. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E210298.
Abstract