Crashes Involving Teenage Drivers Hit 'Disproportionate' Levels
That's according to the RAC.
There are warnings too many young lives are being claimed in crashes involving teenage drivers.
New figures, released by the RAC, show that almost half of accidents in which a young person was killed or seriously injured in 2013 were in cars driven by 17-19 year olds.
A total of 234 teenage passengers either lost their life or were badly injured.
The research also shows that of these cases, almost a quarter of 20-24 year old drivers were to blame.
Ruth Gore is from Safer Roads Humber and says around 25% of all crashes in Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire involve young people:
"About a quarter of all our casualties involve this age group. There's about two crashes every day involving a young driver, that doesn't mean that they're to blame but they're involved in crashes across the region.
"This will be everything from productions in the schools and colleges, we have active partnerships between the council, fire and police and they go in delivering presentations. All of this helps to get them to think about how they are driving and who they are driving with because if you're a young person in a young person's car, your risk goes up.
"Young people might not perhaps realise the dangers that they're in. They might not be concentrating, wearing their seat belt or are distracting the driver, while there are also issues such as drink and drug-driving and speeding. We raise all of these issues with young people and discuss them in various ways so that they're aware of what's happening.
"The number of young people who have been involved in collisions in the area has gone down steadily over the years but they still represent about a quarter of all our crashes. We've actually seen slight increase in the amount of young people who are caught drink-driving so we've been doing campaigns around the dangers of that.
"My message to young people is that you as the driver, the passenger can control the situation. If you're not comfortable with somebody, don't go out in their car and just really think about what you're doing. You as the passeger or the driver have a big effect on what goes on in that vehicle so be an example and put your seatbelt on and don't distract the driver."
RAC Foundation director Professor Stephen Glaister said:
The coalition government repeatedly promised to publish a green paper on young driver safety and repeatedly failed to do so. In the meantime young people have continued to die.
We would urge the new Government to do what the last one did not and debate the subject formally and publicly.
The casualty figures do not cast blame for accidents, but given the disproportionate number of young drivers involved in accidents, the conclusion must be that many teenagers are being killed by the inexperience of their friends at the wheel.
Factor in casualty figures for young drivers themselves and other people who might be involved in these accidents and the scale of the problem only gets bigger.''