Young drivers in rural areas more likely to be involved in serious crashes

Washington, Sept 23 (ANI): Young drivers living in rural areas are more likely to be involved in serious crashes than those living in urban areas, according to a new study.

The survey involving more than 20,000 young Oz drivers revealed that young rural drivers are at a far greater risk of single-vehicle crashes, which are more likely to result in serious injury than other crash types.

"We know that urban crashes with multiple vehicles take place more often due to the high volume cars on city roads," said author Associate Professor Rebecca Ivers, The George Institute.

"What we didn't know was that young drivers in rural locations are actually at a much higher risk of having single-vehicle crashes, which are often fatal and in many cases avoidable.

"Since our study found that young drivers on rural roads were more likely to crash as a result of curved roads and speeding, efforts to reduce speeding behaviour and manage driving at curved road sections, such as speed cameras, and greater use of engineering measures to slow traffic are needed on rural roads", Rebecca added.

The DRIVE study was funded by Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council, NRMA Motoring and Services, and NRMA-ACT Road Safety trust and the Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW. (ANI)