A SIGNIFICANT number of transition year students have driven while unaccompanied by a qualified adult even though they are under the legal age to do so, according to new research.
The study, conducted among 1,882 transition year students in 33 schools, found about 10 per cent of those who were under 17 – the vast majority of students surveyed – had driven without a full driving licence holder at their side. Those who had done so were more likely to live in rural areas.
The findings of the study, being funded by the Road Safety Authority, will be presented at the 40th Psychological Society of Ireland conference in Athlone today.
Margaret Ryan, a PhD student in the department of psychology at Trinity College, said the aim of the research was to explore driver knowledge, skills and attitudes of transition year students before they undertook a course in road safety.
She said the young people grossly underestimated their risk of crashing once they started driving. Inexperience, she said, was a major factor in young people crashing, and actuarial data showed the risk levels off after five to seven years of driving experience.
But 15 per cent of the students believed they would only need one year’s driving experience to be as safe on the road as everyone else, while 52 per cent believed they would be as good as other drivers or at the same risk level as experienced drivers once they had been driving for one to three years.
When asked to consider the consequences of a young person taking a car to see how fast it would go, just over half of them mentioned crashing as the first thing that came to mind. After that, 29 per cent mentioned death and 26 per cent injury.
Ms Ryan said girls were more likely to consider death or injury as likely consequences of a high-risk driving scenario than boys. Boys were more likely to mention consequences such as getting into trouble with the law or parents.