How dashcams can help make young drivers safer on the roads
Dashcams are fast becoming one of the most-widely adopted forms of in-car technology across the UK, and there’s significant evidence already that dashcams help to mitigate driver behaviour on the roads. Police are even actively encouraging their use, as they’re proving to be useful in court - in just the first six months of 2019, they helped in 2000 convictions, while often exonerating their owners, too. Now, a new study suggests that dashboard cameras could be instrumental in helping young drivers to stay safe on the road - an especially important fact, since they’re viewed to be an especially at-risk demographic.
What’s being proposed?
Essentially, every teen’s worst nightmare - getting the parents involved. It’s no secret that parents are often the ones giving some initial financial help to assist their children with their cars, so it naturally follows that they also have a vested interest in making sure that they drive properly. So what’s now being proposed is to have dashboard cameras fitted to the vehicles of new drivers, giving parents the opportunity to review the footage in question, and effectively acting as a digital passenger on every trip.
While this might initially sound a bit Big Brother, it’s worth remembering that many insurers already insist on black boxes being fitted to the cars of many new drivers, recording telematics such the rate of acceleration, regular speed, and similar types of data. In other words, surveillance isn’t anything new for young drivers - it’s just a question of who’s the one looking over their shoulder!
How will this help?
The thing is that there’s evidence that telematics and this sort of thing already have good influences on driving behaviour - that’s a big part of why black boxes have become such a fond favourite of insurers in the first place. This good influence is especially important where young drivers are concerned, because this demographic is associated with a number of particular risks.
Some of these are to do with honest inexperience, such as more frequent driver error and spacial or timing misjudgements. They’re also more easily intimidated by other drivers, and can be panicked or pressured into making (wrong) split-second decisions. However, there are also other more insidious factors - they’re more likely to be tempted by their mobile devices, or be subject to peer pressure from friends inside or outside the car.
Many of these issues don’t have universal or all-encompassing solutions, but there’s no denying that for the majority of young drivers, the ever-present eye of mum and dad can help mitigate their most impulsive or dangerous behaviour. Essentially, combined use of dashcams and devices that record erratic acceleration (like black boxes) can reduce bad driving by young people if they know the evidence will be shared with their parents.
So… should we implement mandatory dashcams for young people?
There are certainly lots of arguments in favour. After all, commercial fleet operators already use lots of similar technologies as standard in their fleets, often to great effect. There’s also a big argument to be made for it in the statistics. Between 2013 and 2015, as many as 25% of people killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads were in crashes that involved a younger driver of between 17 and 24 years old. That’s despite the fact that people in this age group only make up 7% of full licence holders.
However, dashboard cameras are something of a carrot and stick approach, too. So far we’ve talked about the stick: the enforcement of good behaviour. But it can also protect young drivers as well, and that makes such devices absolute gold dust to parents.
This is because having a dashcam fitted helps to protect young drivers against someone else’s bad driving, especially since the weight of someone else’s word will weigh more heavily against them due to their age and experience. (Particularly serious crashes can also incur much higher insurance premium costs.) These reasons alone might be enough to make them a very attractive option to parents, helping to ensure their child is driving safely while also protecting them from anyone else around them who’s not.
Whether the idea appeals to you for your own children’s driving, or you’re just protecting yourself on the roads, you can count on finding a wide variety of dashcams right here at Car Communications to help. You can find them for a wide range of makes and models, and we can even fit them for you using our installation service. Why not take a look around our site, and see what you can find?