For my girlfriend

This young driver campaign, which peaks in the run up to Valentine’s Day, confronts young male drivers with the appalling prospect of killing their girlfriend while they are driving too fast. The campaign targets males because more young females die as passengers than as drivers - often while being driven by their boyfriend.

During 2006, 6 young people (aged 17 - 24 years) were killed on Buckinghamshire’s roads. That’s six young lives ended forever - and the parents, brothers and sisters, boyfriends and girlfriends experiencing the terrible pain of bereavement suffered by the loss of a loved one.

Passengers

• More women aged 17- 19 years die as passengers than as drivers.
• Young drivers are twice as likely to die in a road crash when carrying passengers of their own age.
• One young passenger makes an accident twice as likely, two or more makes it five times as likely.
• Novice drivers admit that their driving is adversely affected by the presence of their peers - and conversely improves when they are accompanied by their parents or other mature adults.

Young male drivers

• One in three road accidents involves men under the age of 20.
• Young male drivers - despite passing the driving test more easily than females - are involved in a higher number of accidents.
• If involved in an accident, a male driver aged 17-20 years is nine times more likely to be at fault than a driver aged 31-40 years with the same length of driving experience.