Safe Driving Parameters
Speed, Cornering, Time, Acceleration & Braking
Why did we select these parameters?
Well, it’s these elements that can contribute to whether you are a safer driver. Driving above the speed limit, taking corners too fast, braking or accelerating too hard and driving at night have been found to contribute to the most serious of road accidents, especially in young drivers.
We use these four Safe Driving Parameters to calculate a safe driving score which is displayed on your dashboard.
Speed and taking corners at speed
Speed is one of the biggest factors in road crashes that kill because the faster you drive, the less time you have to react, and the harder you’ll hit if you crash. In 2009 in the UK, 3,979 people were killed or seriously injured in crashes where speed was a factor; 663 of these were deaths.
Source: www.think.direct.gov.uk
Acceleration and braking
We understand that in some circumstances people may need to brake sharply or increase their speed to get out of a dangerous situation. However if this happens too often it suggests that the driving style is not as safe as it could be. In order to improve your scores, consider the following:
- Do you get into the right lane in sufficient time before a turn-off or roundabout?
- Do you drive too close to the car in front of you?
- Do you drive at a speed suitable for the characteristics of the road so that you can deal with unexpected hazards, such as blind bends, vehicles coming out of junctions, animals on the road etc?
It is things like this that should result in smoother driving without having to brake or accelerate sharply.
Time of day
Driving between 11pm at night and 6am in the morning is one of the most dangerous times, despite there being much less traffic. That’s why premiums will be higher for drivers who do a lot of late night driving.
In order to understand why we are so passionate about Young Driver Insurance, we would like you to check out the 2Young2Die website which has been developed by Brake – a leading road safety charity. The information on this website puts across the reasons why we believe measuring speed and the other parameters as part of assessing risk is so important.
These aren’t the only reasons for poor driving and accidents - talking on your phone, eating, drink/drug driving all contribute and we support Brake in getting all these vital messages across with their 2Young2die campaign
