Episode 2 How Safe are Britain's Roads?

Last year, the number of people

killed on Britain's roads went up for the first time in years.

1,900 people died on them.

That's the equivalent of four London-to-Glasgow commuter trains

with every seat full.

And a further 23,000 were seriously injured.

That's enough seriously injured people

to fill the Albert Hall four times.

The total injured is far higher,

more than the population of Luton.

Is this number of casualties acceptable?

And what can be done to reduce it?

We've talked to the experts, the drivers and the survivors.

My boyfriend died on impact

cos his side of the car took the brunt of the head-on collision.

-And they all agree that by far...

-..the major contributory factor..

..in collisions on Britain's roads...

BOTH: ..is us, the British driver.

Almost all accidents involve human error, so what are we doing wrong?

He's watching documentaries on his laptop.

With access to a unique archive of crashes and near-misses,

we'll be seeing what can happen

when our obsession with our smartphones takes over.

And asking if our 24-hour culture

is inviting us to fall asleep at the wheel.

We'll discover which is the greatest threat - tiredness or drunkenness.

Whoa.

And setting up our own experiment to find out who is more dangerous.

Adolescents?

Or octogenarians?

And we'll be asking what we can we do about it.

If you took our cars away, our whole lives would change.

So if we are the problem, is technology the answer?

If we would remove the human,

there's a huge potential of making traffic safer.

Look at that!

And we'll be answering the most hotly debated question of them all.

Who are the best drivers?

Men?

Or women?

There are some females who could do with some better road skills.

Last week, we looked at roads and cars.

But with more than nine out of ten accidents involving human error,

tonight we'll be finding out the truth about us,

-the drivers.

-Why do we keep making catastrophic errors?

We'll be finding out who are the most dangerous drivers on our roads.

And discovering the incredible risks virtually all of us routinely take.

But we're going to start with

one of the things that distracts us the most. Our phones.

We've all seen people using their phone while they drive,

even though it's illegal.

So how dangerous IS using your phone at the wheel?

I'm going to find out what the experts have to say.

And I'm going spying.

It's a big old beast of a vehicle, isn't it?

It is. It's a right machine, it's a different world up in there.

Let's have a look.

-Where do you want me to sit?

-If you could sit in the middle for us.

PC Mick Eustis of the South Yorkshire Police has invited me

to take part in Operation Ophelia.

The idea is simple.

By travelling in an unmarked truck, not only are we undercover,

but we are also high enough to look down into cars

and straight into HGVs.

So we're going to spy on drivers

to see if they're doing anything in the privacy of their cars

which might contribute to a crash.

Of course, being a police operation,

there will be consequences for the drivers.

So in this car here, if we see any offences taking place on the road,

we've got this vehicle and actually another one ready to go.

We're just entering M18 northbound, we'll go hunting.

And the hunting is good.

There's no shortage of people using mobile phones.

We follow one driver for some time.

She's so wrapped up in her conversation, she hasn't noticed

the man filming her from the lorry or the two police cars behind her.

Still on the phone. Can quite clearly see.

She's now looking in her rear-view mirror at us.

She's having quite a joyous time, smiling.

She is, she's having a good conversation, isn't she?

She's the one to our left - can you get in behind her?

Yankee Romeo One Two Uniform Oscar Echo.

Her phone call ended

with the likelihood of a £60 fine and three points.

So how many accidents do mobile phones really cause?

I'm visiting the Transport Research Laboratory in Berkshire

for some facts and figures about mobile use and accidents.

So this is the ultimate research lab for drivers, basically.

You can find out how we behave,

why we behave in particular scenarios and situations.

That's right. We can set up scenarios in a safe way

where we can understand how different types of distraction

and impairment affect our ability to drive or ride safely.

'TRL have used their driving simulator to compare the effects

'of mobile phones and alcohol on our driving, with shocking results.

'Their work shows using a mobile phone

'whilst driving can slow your reaction time by up to 50%.'

Your brain is dealing with the complex task of driving.

You're having to maintain the speed of the vehicle,

the position of the vehicle.

To speak on a mobile phone as well

makes you much worse at all those things.

I'm seeing for myself just how dangerous it can be.

Back in South Yorkshire, we're following a car driving erratically.

He's still all over the road.

Yeah, he's looking, he is definitely doing something.

He's got the phone in his left hand.

Yeah, he's texting. Look at that.

'People do the same journey from work to home'

day in, day out, and think they're perfectly safe

being on the phone or texting, because they know the road.

A driver on a familiar journey,

having a conversation on a mobile phone,

might miss that one-off occasion

when someone has to brake suddenly in front of them.

We'll pull in behind you, but do you want to come past and stop him?

He's been texting doing 70 miles an hour on the motorway.

We've done studies that have shown when you're driving

and using a mobile phone, whether it's handheld or hands-free,

that impairment is worse than being at the legal limit of alcohol.

When someone's involved in a collision and they've been on their

mobile phone, invariably there's fatality or serious injury involved.

Mick believes phones are so dangerous,

the penalties for using them at the wheel should be increased.

The fine at the moment is a £60 fine and three points.

Personally I think it should be the same as what it is

if you're driving without insurance, which is £200 and six points.

'The government is currently considering

'raising the penalty to £90 and three penalty points.

'But if phones are bad, wait till you see

'what other dangerous habits some drivers have.

'From our vantage point, we can look straight into the cabs

'of the biggest lorries.'

-He's got a laptop, he's got a laptop open.

-Yeah.

We can't see whether the laptop's on, but that's a classic.

He's got the laptop open, as you can see it's facing towards him.

Can't quite see whether there's anything on it at the moment.

-That very much looks like it's set up for...

-Absolutely.

He's got his entertainment going there, it's plugged in.

'One in eight deaths on the road last year were due to crashes

'involving lorries.

'As were over 1,000 serious injuries.

'Foreign-registered lorries

'with the wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle

'are involved in twice as many serious accidents

'as British lorries.'

Right, so this guy, we drove past him,

he had the laptop open on the dashboard,

appeared to be watching a movie,

caught sight of us and closed the laptop.

So what I'm quite intrigued to find out

is what he was actually doing with it. So let's see if we can, er...

Cos what's really staggering is the kind of things that people do

when they're driving - phones, feet up on the dashboard,

saw a woman doing her makeup earlier.

It is extraordinary what people think they can get away with.

Let's see if he speaks English.

He's been watching National Geographic.

He's been watching National...?

A film on National Geographic. On his laptop.

What was the movie, National Geographic?

Or a documentary?

'This Hungarian driver will be charged

'with driving without due care and attention.

'And he'll have to pay a £300 roadside deposit

'in case he doesn't turn up for the hearing.'

Gang war.

Gang war...

He's driving at 60 miles an hour with 25 tons on the back

of his truck and he says, "Well, you know, it gets a bit boring

"after a few hours." And I'm sure it does, but imagine the consequences

if he had an accident in that, going at that speed?

I mean, it would be an absolute disaster.

At the Transport Research Laboratory, they don't have to

just imagine the consequences of a serious accident.

Here's a classic crash scenario.

Traffic has come to a halt, maybe on a motorway slip road.

A lorry carrying a third of the payload of the one that we stopped

is doing 50 miles an hour and wanders out of lane,

perhaps because the driver is watching

a particularly engrossing movie.

The lorry collides with the line of cars.

With such catastrophic consequences,

what can be done to make the drivers of these vehicles safer?

'One answer could be this little device.

'It's becoming increasingly popular with commercial fleets

'around the world, and we have been road-testing it.'

'DriveCam films all our mistakes.

'If we brake, accelerate or corner too fast, it sends video

'over the mobile phone network back to HQ.'

Installed in 400,000 vehicles worldwide,

DriveCam is creating an extraordinary archive

of crashes and near-misses,

helping us understand what really happens when things go wrong.

SHE SCREAMS

Oh, my God!

Could you please let me out?

Please let me out.

What types of things are you capturing people doing?

What are the habits that people have?

You know, it's really all over the map.

You can see the sequence,

but you can also see the pattern.

Some people habitually will roll a stop sign.

They'll pull up and they think, "Oh, I stopped,"

and then you'll see, over the course of a week or a month,

ten times they thought they were stopping.

And meanwhile, you watch when they thought they stopped,

a lorry runs right through the intersection

and they almost get sideswiped.

For the first time, we're able to see the near-misses.

There are reckoned to be ten of them for every collision.

I want to see what DriveCam have caught of people on their phones.

He's texting away.

I'm looking at him but I'm going to...ooh! Ooh!

Brake! Oh, oh...

Yeah, so in our world,

when we analyse that video, we see two things.

We see certainly he was texting,

but it wasn't just the fact that he was texting.

-Did you see what his eyes and his head were doing?

-Yeah.

We'll stop right there.

So head and eyes down.

-He's in a neighbourhood. Kids playing.

-I know.

And he's really close

-to that car in front of him.

-Absolutely.

People do that all the time.

They think they know what they're doing.

"Oh, yeah, got my eye on the car in front,

-"It's fine, I'll just send this text."

-Absolutely.

That could have been worse than it was.

But sometimes that moment's distraction can be disastrous.

These videos are released by those involved

when no-one was seriously injured.

They can be an eye-opener on the causes of accidents.

But right now, this technology is in very few vehicles here.

All the information about an accident

is gathered after the event by hand.

At the scene of all collisions,

the British police fill in a form called Stats 19.

They look for contributory factors to the accident

and can tick up to six boxes.

The options include things like

poor road surface or mobile phone use.

These forms become the basis for the accident statistics

and by far the most common factor is, "Failed to look properly."

It contributes to nearly half of all accidents.

But accidents rarely have a single cause.

Almost always, a number of factors come together.

Like in this situation.

Distracted by the stereo... STEREO BLASTS

..together with another driver not paying attention...

..and no seat belt.

So being distracted when you're in a demanding situation

will hugely increase your chances of a crash.

But how about if your driving ability is lowered or impaired?

That could be because you are ill or disabled,

because you're tired, or because you've been taking drugs.

But top of the list of reasons recorded

for a driver's ability being impaired

is because they've been drinking.

Now it's my turn to go out with Mick.

We're going to see if we can get a first-hand look at an accident

involving an impaired driver.

Dispatch, whereabouts did that happen?

There's been a fail to stop.

It's a drunk driver, driven off from the police

and he's crashed his car.

SIREN BLARES

It's an incident involving

this vehicle just up here in front of the police car.

I believe it's been seen by a police vehicle in Doncaster.

It's tried to stop the vehicle and it's driven off at speed.

The vehicle's come down this road opposite,

the driver's obviously come straight on, as you can see,

where he's collided with the fence.

So he's been arrested, taken to the police station

and at the police station he'll give some more breath samples.

Later, he'll be prosecuted for several offences,

including drink-driving and driving without insurance.

How common is this kind of accident?

In terms of these minor collisions where people have had a drink,

quite regular.

-Had there been anyone coming...

-Yeah, that would be really serious.

..could be a pedal cyclist, it's people going home at this time.

If he'd hit them, then we'd be looking at a fatality or something.

Numerous campaigns have helped

to halve drink-drive casualties in ten years.

Sir, would you mind stepping out of the car and doing a breath test?

Look, you had two pints, you're over the limit,

that's a twelve-month ban and a criminal record.

But a newer target is something most drivers admit they've done.

Driving when tired.

If you fall asleep at the wheel, you'll put your life in danger.

Many of us have struggled to stay awake.

I literally felt like I'd closed my eyes for about five seconds,

but my car swerved. It kind of shook me up.

I just was falling asleep.

I had to keep slapping myself in the face to stay awake.

The wheels kind of went over the cats-eyes a bit

and kind of jolted me, and that's when I thought,

"Right, I've got to pull off now."

I hit the edge of the road, the hard shoulder,

and I woke up instantly.

Suddenly, you come to,

and you're very acutely aware that you are driving a car.

Transport officials estimate tiredness may be a factor

in as many much as 20% of all accidents.

But of course, it isn't illegal to drive when you're a little tired,

or, for that matter, when you're below the alcohol limit.

We are going to look at some everyday situations.

We're going to compare the effects of tiredness and alcohol.

So, not over the limit, but a bit tipsy.

Not staying up all night, just a few hours sleep.

Maybe you've had a couple of drinks after work.

The sort of thing every new parent might recognise.

So how dangerous is that, really?

We're in Nottingham.

Tomorrow we're heading for the driving simulator

at the university's Accident Research Centre.

And while Justin's tucked up in bed, I've been sleep-deprived.

Check out my PJs!

See you in three hours.

I'll tell you something for nothing.

Three hours is NOT enough sleep!

SHE GROANS

Are you feeling tired?

This is brilliant!

-I think this might be it.

-Is this it?

That looks really high-tech, doesn't it?

Like Joe 90 or something!

-Yeah, it's...

-Get in the pod!

'Dr David Crundall studies risky behaviour amongst drivers.

'He will be testing us.'

-Pleased to meet you, David. Anita.

-I'm Justin, very good to meet you.

-I've had three hours' sleep.

-Fabulous!

-You're looking very good on it!

-I feel OK, actually.

She seems very lively. Doesn't seem to have affected you at all.

Would you drive to work like this quite happily?

Yeah, if I had to, I would. I'm being honest. I would do.

After three hours' sleep, feeling like this, I'd get up and drive.

Maybe we can see if that really is the case.

-If that's a wise thing to do.

-Yeah.

And I get to have a drink and watch you!

-That's not so bad, is it?!

-Yeah, he's drinking on the job!

Dearie me! That doesn't sound like work!

It doesn't sound like work.

So we get to test the alcohol issue as well.

-Yeah.

-Head to head.

Inside the dome is a complete car.

Justin's the first on the road.

He gets a go totally sober,

so that we can compare his driving later.

It looks great. It looks really space-age!

So facing straight ahead,

and now follow the white dot on the screen, please.

The system will monitor our eyes to see where we're looking on the road,

and judge whether our vision is affected.

If you're looking in the right place,

you're processing what you're looking at,

-then you're less likely to have crashes.

-Right.

# I'm on the road again Na-na-na... #

Oh, here we go. Yay!

I'm staying in the hard shoulder for the moment, while I get used to it.

We want you to really get a feel for the way the car drives,

the way the car handles.

You have managed, however, to already exceed the speed limit.

Oh, really? I'm only going 60, mate!

-He's quite safe, isn't he? He's doing OK?

-Yep.

What we can take from this at the moment

is he's actually dealing very, very well

with the simulated virtual environment here.

-Right, so if you'd just like to go straight up.

-I'm really tired.

While I get settled into the simulator,

Justin's prepping for his test.

There we go. It's quite strong.

Maybe a little bit.

Wake up!

It doesn't feel right, you know.

Drinking in the laboratory.

'We're each doing a short drive,

'the sort of thing some of us might well attempt

'when feeling this tired.

'Can I drive normally for just 15 minutes?'

I'm having to really concentrate hard.

This is actually quite scary.

Her speed is round about 60mph.

Her steering is pretty central.

So can you tell any impairment now, looking at this?

There's a marked difference between how you were performing

when you were keeping lane maintenance,

compared to how Anita's doing right at the moment.

Oh, yeah. She's right on the edge of the lane.

So she is varying actually quite a bit there.

She's almost touching the hard shoulder there.

And this is, what? Eight minutes into her drive.

Yeah, it's not long, is it?

No, she's all over the place.

To use the technical term!

Oh, I hate this! It's horrible!

So I want to know how I did on just three hours sleep.

Literally, half an hour beforehand, you were saying,

"I don't feel any problem. I could drive like this."

So we're seeing these effects can come on very quickly,

and also the level of introspection drivers have

about their susceptibility to these effects...

How much they understand about their own abilities?

How likely they are to have these things

-are often underestimated.

-They have no idea.

We think we're better drivers than we actually are, basically?

Most people will claim that they are better than average, certainly.

Now it's my turn.

Just one more swig, and I am feeling tipsy.

But I'm still well under the legal limit of 35 on this breathalyser.

Britain and Malta have the highest limits in Europe.

Drinking ANY alcohol and driving

is against the law in some European countries.

Research suggests even small amounts can affect your ability.

So how safe am I?

So he's being very cautious right from the start.

We're seeing a 20mph drive.

Doesn't want to get caught.

I don't feel that drunk, but I do feel...

..a little bit disorientated.

There seems to be a lot going on.

I think he clipped the kerb there and that's sent him

-wiggling all over the place.

-Oh! Whoa!

Dear me! I was just thinking,

"I'm controlling this really well," when I hit the kerb there.

I don't feel completely in control of this.

There we go. He's admitting it himself.

Many people who are under the influence think

that they can actually control it,

that they can be cautious,

that they can avoid any particular hazard that's on the roadway.

There's a car hidden behind this bus that's going to pull out now.

Oh!

He braked in time.

Where are you off to?

You still showed errors of driving performance

which could have been problematic if you were on the real road.

And this is UNDER the legal limit.

You know, alcohol is a depressant.

Fatigue is obviously going to reduce attention,

and sometimes you can see very, very similar effects from the two.

So in terms of risk, how does tiredness compare with drinking?

Well, one recent study has shown that a three-hour nocturnal drive

with somebody who is fatigued

can be as risky as driving at the legal maximum.

Breathalysers and blood tests have proven effective

in the fight to cut drink-driving.

Tiredness may be harder to tackle.

Here we have a complex background.

For more than 30 years, Professor Frank McKenna

has studied traffic accidents.

He's one of Britain's leading experts.

The problem is, sleep is not optional.

When you deprive people of sleep,

then the one thing that is guaranteed to happen

is they will sleep. And the problem is,

are they at the wheel of a car while doing that sleep?

so we need to move away from this 24/7 notion

that we can treat sleep as optional. It's a biological phenomena

that's basic and it's necessary.

So many trucks parked up down there. It's enormous.

I'm meeting HGV driver Colin Wrighton, who knows first-hand

the possible consequences of fatigue and driving.

-REPORTER:

-An horrific pile up on the M62 near Liverpool.

The driver of the lorry had fallen asleep at the wheel.

He collided with a line of stationary traffic. At the front,

a Nissan Micra was crushed under a pick-up truck.

Six years ago, with Colin asleep,

his truck wandered onto the hard shoulder

and then ploughed into a queue of stationary traffic,

killing one of the car drivers, 25-year-old Toby Tweddell.

The first car had flipped, and where was Toby's car? Was that...?

I'm not sure where he was in the queue but he must have been

a bit further down, so I'm not sure what his car was.

And he was the only person to have died?

Yeah. I've had a lot of, er... a lot of, er, counselling over that

because it, you know, it's a hard thing to happen

because it's unfortunate that he passed away, so I...

I still think about it every day, and the family.

Colin wants to meet Toby's parents.

So far, they can't bear to face the man who killed their son.

But they do believe he's remorseful.

His accident wasn't a straightforward case of fatigue.

It's estimated that as many as 4% of men and 2% of women

suffer from a condition called sleep apnoea, largely undiagnosed.

It affects breathing at night,

and the sufferer won't be aware that they haven't slept properly,

meaning they can easily fall asleep during the day.

The only way I can explain it is if you've ever been on the motorway

and you've gone past something and you've thought to yourself,

"How did I get there?" You know?

That's what the sleep apnoea was like. I didn't know...

One minute you were there and the next minute...

But you don't feel tired, that's the thing about it.

Colin was never prosecuted for dangerous driving

because he'd already made three visits to his GP

complaining of chronic fatigue.

It's somebody's life that's gone

that didn't need to have gone, you know,

and I'm more annoyed at the doctors not picking up on it and saying

"we'll send you to a clinic, a sleep clinic,

"to somebody who knows about the sleep disorders."

And that's why a lot of doctors need to be aware of it now.

One estimate puts the number of HGV drivers

with a degree of sleep apnoea on our roads at nearly 140,000.

Colin is still driving trucks

because he's now considered safe as he is undergoing treatment.

He spends much of his time campaigning to raise awareness

amongst other drivers.

Sleep apnoea is a silent killer and people need to know more about it.

We've been looking at some of the key factors

which can make us more prone to crash.

But apart from these, statistics on collisions are broken down by sex

and age and looking this way can give us insight

into the risks presented by different groups of drivers.

So, let's start with that eternal question -

who are the better drivers, men or women?

Absolutely no contest whatsoever,

males are complete twats as drivers.

Females, I think they're the worst drivers in the world.

Watch out, I've got the handbag ready.

Females are better than me, to be honest,

especially at reversing. I crash into everything.

Men are more efficient when it comes to getting in tight spots

and getting out.

Yeah, you know the woman driver,

they are the more safer driver than the man driver.

I mean, my wife's just taken her 53rd lesson and on her third test.

Confused!

Since the early days of motoring

there have been strong stereotypes of male and female drivers.

I'm getting out. You can leave me here.

You're mad! We could be killed.

Could there be some truth behind the stereotype?

SCREECHING TYRES

This piece of research has really got me thinking. It looks into -

now this is a big one -

the differences between male and female drivers.

Not only do we drive differently, but according to this,

we also crash differently. Men have more accidents on bends,

but women have more right-turning accidents.

Men have more overtaking accidents

but women have more left-turning accidents.

So does that make the men worse or the women worse?

And why is there even a difference?

First up, women.

In Nottingham, Dr Crundall and his team of psychologists

are trying to get to the bottom of why women crash more at junctions.

We know that there are some things that men and women differ on.

Better or worse is perhaps the wrong term. We should say that there are

qualitative differences in people's abilities to do certain tasks

and that's just a function of the way the brain is made up

-in the different genders.

-You think we'll find real differences

between men and women?

Well, we know that some of the spatial tests we're using today

have found gender differences in the past. The question is

whether we can relate that back to driving differences.

-It'll be really interesting.

-That's going to be great.

-Let's look round.

-Sure.

-I'm quite intrigued by this.

The first test was to find out how long they've been driving,

how often they drive and how much of a liability they are

to the rest of us.

To further examine their driving ability

our volunteers will take part

in a hazard prediction test.

-Oh, spot the hazard?

-It goes black before the hazard occurs.

So she's got to try and predict what's going to happen,

as if you're driving.

Yeah.

So there you go, there was a hazard hidden in that video.

Have another go. Did you see the women being pushed?

Their driving skills assessed,

the team now hope to link those to their spatial ability.

That's the ability to judge what's going on around you,

how fast, and where.

Very important at junctions.

If you're good at this task then you have more resources,

if you like, to spend doing other stuff. If you're not so good

at rotating space, thinking about space, then you might have too much

going on at the same time and that could be why

you're more liable to make mistakes or have accidents

or do these kind of things.

These tests of spatial ability are already well established,

and men tend to do better at them.

I'd like you to place the arrow somewhere on the circle

in the direction where you think this landmark is.

So if the link to driving ability can be made, we may get closer

to understanding who is the better driver.

-That's the Playhouse there...

-Ah, yes.

Probably slightly more that way.

-What are you doing with this?

-Checking my compass.

You're not allowed to do that!

-He's got his compass out!

-It seemed like a good idea.

It is, but it's about kind of showing your skills accurately.

By the end of the day, the team have tested over 35 people.

So what have we found out about women drivers

and collisions at junctions?

Well, we started off with the idea

that spatial ability should be linked

to driving ability and that might explain why women have certain types

of accidents compared to men. It's just a one-day study.

There is some evidence there to link spatial ability with driving,

so we want to pursue that

and see if we can get those gender differences

further down the line with a larger sample.

So there are differences in the way men and women see the world

which can affect the way we drive and therefore the way we crash.

Men seem to be ahead at the moment, but what about their accidents?

Why do they run off the road more and have more head-on collisions?

Professor McKenna has studied this for years.

Males choose to drive faster,

they choose to drive closer to the vehicle in front,

they're more involved in driving violations and they're prepared

to drive for longer periods without a break.

It sounds like men take the bigger risks.

But we still don't have the answer to the fundamental question.

Which of us, statistically...

-Men or women...

-..are the better drivers?

On the simple criterion of being able to stay alive on the roads,

then we'd have to say that women are better drivers than men.

Women are below men, consistently, across all ages except 35 to 54

when the two groups meet.

But basically women have fewer fatal accidents than men.

And it's not just fatalities.

Overall, men have 62% of accidents. Even allowing for the extra miles

they drive, they are having seven accidents to every five women have.

So we are saying that women are better drivers than men.

But where are the differences we have observed coming from?

I've come to the Neuroscience Institute

at University College London, where they study men and women's brains

in relation to risky activity.

The interesting thing, looking at the raw data,

is it's completely contrary to most people's expectations

and women seem to be significantly better drivers than men

-on almost every measure.

-I think that's more, as much as anything,

an indication that stereotypes are not always right and actually

you can't interpret everything based on a stereotype. You've got to start

finding evidence in order to be able to really show

-whether that's right or wrong.

-So why might it be

that women are better at driving than men?

Beyond the actual size differences in the brain,

men have slightly bigger brains but men tend to be slightly bigger...

beyond that there aren't any clear, defined differences

between the actual structure of a man's brain and a woman's brain,

and yet there are differences in the way that they behave, so that might

be some of the more subtle differences in the brain

that we aren't completely sure about yet, but it's much more likely to be

an interaction of the brain, the behaviour and culture we live in.

So from very early on, intentionally or otherwise,

we tend to treat young boys and young girls quite differently

and the way you behave and the external input to the brain

hugely impact on how the brain develops.

So you say we need to get out and get some evidence.

I say you trust women drivers more.

And the difference between male and female drivers

is biggest among the under 25s. I was shocked to learn

that the leading cause of death for men of that age

is traffic accidents.

-NEWSCASTER:

-An 18-year-old driver,

in whose car four teenage girls were killed

when he crashed on a mountain road....

-REPORTER:

-'Police have named five of the six young people killed

'in a road accident in Leicestershire yesterday.'

-NEWSCASTER:

-'Two men died

'after a car crashed into trees in Shropshire...'

Paralympic gold medallist Josie Pearson was one of five young people

travelling to Newport.

My boyfriend was what they call a boy racer, he liked speed...

He took risks probably when he shouldn't have done.

Josie's boyfriend was trying to overtake a car on an A road.

We used to tell him "Why do you do it? Don't drive so fast,"

but he obviously got a kick out of it, a thrill out of it.

They ended up in a head-on collision on a blind bend.

My boyfriend died on impact. The guy that was sat in front of me

was wearing his seatbelt. Unfortunately, I wasn't.

So my best friend, she had a lot of internal damage

and then the chap that was sat behind the driver, my boyfriend,

he was fine.

He got himself out of the car, apparently, and they found him

-in shock on the side of the road.

-How old was your boyfriend?

My boyfriend was 19.

I was 17, my best friend was 17.

I think when you're that age, you feel invincible,

and you feel that, "Oh, that's not going to happen to me."

I don't know whether he didn't care or if it was more like a...

Obviously he must've got an adrenaline rush out of it.

I can't believe how irresponsible he was.

I want to find out more about boy racers

and why they take such big risks on the road.

I'm meeting up with Professor Geoff Beattie, who has written

about car culture for the insurance industry.

-Pleased to meet you.

-Hi, it's nice to see you.

-Good to see you, how are you?

-Very well, thank you.

So what is it about cars

and putting your foot down on the accelerator and this group of men?

Well, I mean, it's celebrating what young men have evolved to do,

which is stand out from the crowd by being faster, stronger, more daring.

Here they're doing it in a particularly cultural way.

They're doing it through cars.

We've come to Ultimate Street Car event at the Santa Pod raceway,

where anyone can bring their own car and test it out on the track.

The beauty of cars is that

you don't have to be the best hunter of the pack

to drive a car really well. A lot depends upon the car,

so it gives everyone the chance to rise in the tribe

by getting into one of those cars and just racing along that track.

And of course if you look at the age of the people here,

they're all under 25. Very few women here.

-Any women who are here are here...

-With their boyfriends.

-Yes.

Is this your car?

-Whose car is it?

-Mine.

-What are we looking at?

-Redtop, 2.1 Redtop. 16-year-old.

-Did you build this yourself?

Yeah, apart from the paint.

How much did you spend on it?

Well, it's insured for about ten grand.

And how old are you?

-24.

-24. And you're insured for £10,000? That's so much money.

-Fully comp as well.

-Why are you spending so much money on a car?

-Cos I enjoy going out in it, that's why.

-Do you?

-Yeah.

-What's the enjoyment, what's the pleasure?

Driving fast. Shouldn't say that, should you?

-How fast have you driven?

-Er, about 140 in this.

On the roads?

Might have done. I'm on camera, I'm not going to say that, am I?

-But do you think that's wise? Do you think that's safe?

-Of course not.

-So why do you are you doing it?

-Cos I get a buzz out of it.

-That's the main reason.

-Yeah?

-Were you on your own or with someone?

Groups of friends. Yeah, we go out in cars, have a laugh.

It's the culture, isn't it? A group of friends, that's what we do.

Do up cars, come here, race them for the weekend

but here it's better cos it's all legal, isn't it?

-What do cars mean to you?

-Pardon?

-What do cars mean to you?

Everything, it's my job. I'm a mechanic. Everything, my life.

-Do you race?

-We don't race so much, we used to.

There's a couple of places round where I live,

but it's all been shut down now.

It does get out of hand, don't get me wrong.

-Why, what's happened?

-A couple of crashes and stuff.

-Serious?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Have you lost friends?

No, no, not personally. But I know people who have lost friends.

So what do the neuroscientists have to say about boy racers

and their risk-taking?

In the last 15 years, MRI scans have enabled researchers to find out

that the human brain keeps developing until at least 25.

They believe that the period known as adolescence can go on

well into our twenties, and our brains change profoundly

over this period.

This part in the middle of the brain is very much involved in emotion

and there's an area right down here which is called

the ventral striatum, and this is the part of the brain

that is about processing reward,

it's the bit which makes you get that kick

when you get that adrenaline rush, when you have that feeling

of a high, and this part really changes in adolescence

and we can see that in adolescent behaviour. But we can also see that

in MRI scanners, so if you get an adolescent to do something

that they get a reward, this part of the brain really lights up

much more profoundly than in children

and more, in most cases, than adults as well.

This isn't a less-good adult brain,

it's adapted to what we need to do in that period of our lives -

try new experiences our parents may not approve of, impress girls.

It's just that evolution hadn't anticipated souped-up cars.

So, for example, if you were to drive fast,

have the wind in your hair, that sense of reward

and that sense of adventure that you get

is being partly processed in this area.

This is delivering that kind of sensation of happiness, euphoria?

Exactly, this part of the brain is vital

for you to be able to feel that,

and it seems to be really active in this adolescent age group.

But an interesting thing is, it's not all of the time.

So adolescents are capable of having very normal, safe driving behaviour

in the lab, but when you put them in a more high-emotional situation,

for example when they've got friends they want to impress,

then they seem to behave in a more risky way

and they activate this part of their brain more.

Who do you think are the most dangerous people on the roads?

-Definitely old people.

-Who are the most dangerous people on the roads?

-Why women?

-Because they pull out on you for no reason.

-THEY ALL LAUGH

-Just...

no common sense at all.

All the boys that we've spoken to, when we have asked them

"who do you think are the most dangerous people on the roads?"

none of them have said, "We are."

They've all blamed women or old people.

They think it's a conspiracy, they think it's a stereotype.

And they're saying that the reality doesn't match the stereotype.

But it's as if they're in denial.

It's as if they've persuaded themselves

of a particular view of the world.

And they've got categorisations for women and old people.

And as long as they stick to that, they can feel invincible.

It seems we're the worst people to asses our own driving ability.

Of the 1,900 road deaths last year, one in five were young people.

And it's not just male drivers. Young women are also at high risk.

Much of this is simply due to lack of experience on the road.

However, there are some proposals around to address this.

The Association of British Insurers are calling

for graduated driving licences for young people,

so you would be able to start learning to drive

six months earlier than you can currently,

so while you're 16-and-a-half, but then you have to wear L plates

on your cars for an extra year,

you're not allowed to have friends in the car with you.

And you can't drive between the hours of 11pm and 4am.

And also stricter rules on the amount of alcohol

that a young person can have in their system whilst driving.

Accidents amongst this group of young doesn't just come down

to risk-taking. Often it's lack of experience,

they just haven't been driving long enough to fully understand roads

or cars, so graduated driving licences make a lot of sense.

We know that in Sweden when this happened,

there was about a 40% reduction in crashes.

So there are massive opportunities

for us to decrease the amount of blood on the road.

These kinds of interventions are most effective for high-risk groups.

Another high-risk group are in fact the most experienced drivers

of them all - the elderly.

His life was torn apart when his wife and son were killed

after a car mounted the pavement they were walking along.

It was being driven by an elderly man who had a heart attack.

..calling for a change in the law

so drivers over a certain age are retested.

His age, his reaction times,

his reading of certain situations were failing.

Let's look at the statistics for how age affects accidents.

Drivers under 20 are 12 times more likely than not

to be to blame for an accident.

Drivers aged 50 are more likely to be innocent.

By 80, it's back up to seven times more likely to be to blame

and climbing.

There have been calls for compulsory retesting of the elderly.

So we thought we'd put them head-to-head with the young

and see how they compare.

Adolescents versus...

Octogenarians.

I've got my team of young drivers, a lot of them have had crashes,

they're paying a lot of money for their insurance.

It is a concern, but they all tell me they're very safe drivers,

so all I can do is believe them.

Dr Crundall and his team have designed an obstacle course

for our drivers to negotiate.

It consists of nine gates.

At each gate they will have a choice of two gaps.

They'll get more points for the narrower gap.

-Fewer for the wider one.

-No points if they touch the sides.

So we can see if there's a difference in the risk

-which they're prepared to take.

-And also in their driving ability.

All our drivers are accompanied by a qualified driving instructor,

-but he's not allowed to help.

-There's no time limit...

Go.

ENGINE STRAINS

'And no extra points for speed.' Steady, go!

Who will score higher?

Who do you think's going to be safer, you,

-or someone in their eighties?

-I think us.

Who's going to be best?

We are!

First up for the older drivers, Jenny, driving since 1948.

It must have been quite unusual for a woman to drive in 1948.

-I suppose it was. I've always been a bit of a go-getter.

-Go!

Is she going to go for... It's two fives there, isn't it?

-It's not very wide.

-No.

We'll go through the twenties, get our marks up as high as possible.

-Oh, yes, she's knocked it down.

-Bad mark!

I love my car, it's like my wife.

I go everywhere in it, and it's just my life.

-You nervous, Taelor?

-No.

Taelor is completely oblivious to his seatbelt alarm.

ALARM BEEPS

We want to know how observant our drivers are whilst concentrating

on driving the course, so we've dressed one of our cameramen

in a bear suit.

This might equate to noticing a pedestrian stepping out

while you're looking for a parking place.

What was the cameraman wearing?

I don't know, I wasn't looking for the cameraman.

-You didn't spot the cameraman?

-No.

HE LAUGHS

You're all over 80, how do you feel about driving?

I mean, are you as good at driving as you were?

I mean, we don't know, but we just are careful drivers and...

..and our life, if you took our cars away,

our whole lives would change.

If I had to give up my car, I've no means of getting anywhere

and I live in a rural area like this,

there just are no buses to get me into town.

-I don't mind doing left turns.

-But you don't like right turns.

-I don't like right turns.

-That'll make it hard to get around.

Then I'm going left.

Round to the left.

'Our village is very near Junction 17, M4'

so I go along there,

turn left into the hospital,

when I come to leave, I go out and turn left again

and come back on the old road...

-Avoiding right turns.

-Avoiding any right turns.

So you're driving down here

and you decide whether you want to go through...

Which of those two gates do you want to go through?

-Right...

-And as you go round there, there's a 10 and a 20.

You can't go through there!

-You can.

-You can't!

You can, no, you can.

After a cautious start, Marian uses a new tactic.

-How do you reverse?

-That's it, yep.

-Reversing to re-align...

-That's sensible, isn't it?

If you're not sure you're going to negotiate,

you know, she's playing it cool.

Certainly for elderly people,

you expect that doing multiple tasks at the same time

in a dynamic environment will be difficult.

The way Marian's dealing with this - she's actually stopping the car,

then making that decision while she's stationary.

It's a very sensible compensatory strategy she's using.

There is a lot of discussion at the moment

about introducing compulsory testing for older drivers.

Would you agree that people should have compulsory testing?

I don't think it should wait until we're 80

because if you're still handling a car properly at 60,

you'll probably still be handling it all right at 80.

The high-scoring gap at the end of the course is worth 40 points,

although it's actually narrower than the car.

We've called it the impossigate,

but Len manages, with an impressive display of skill,

to get his car through.

So what are the results on risk-taking and driving ability?

It takes a week for the number crunching.

Did old drivers score more points than young drivers?

-Are they better?

-Are they better?

They did score more points - we've got 91 points for the old drivers.

-only 81 points for the young drivers.

-Whoa!

Statistically speaking, that gap isn't big enough.

-Yeah, it's not that significant.

-But there is definitely a trend

where the old drivers are doing better.

So we can't draw concrete conclusions about ability,

but what about risk-taking?

Which group was tempted through the narrower gates by higher points?

Again, it's actually favouring the old people for being slightly risky.

Oh, 40.

-40 or 10. Your choice.

-That's too tempting for words.

The older drivers were slightly more likely to go for the risky gate,

but slightly more likely to get through as well.

She's made it. That was another 20 points, I think.

So the old are taking risks to earn points,

but well-calculated ones,

and not least because they were three times slower than the young,

some of whom really went for it.

We're rocking, ain't we?

Both groups had been clearly told

that speed didn't gain points.

The octogenarians seemed to take that on board.

But there was one other important result for the old drivers,

'not as a group, but as individuals.'

'One of them was clearly the best driver

'and another was by far and away the worst.'

'Where does that leave compulsory retesting?'

Is it fair to, in this instance,

to blanket-test all the blue people in this graph...

Given that they've done better than the young people...

-..just to find the outliers?

-But one's done really badly.

-But hold on, this outlier is really bad.

-It's way off the scale.

There's not much evidence

that those types of measures for elderly people

will have a major impact.

In fact, older people do tend to take very sensible precautions.

Once they have medical issues,

they often will take themselves out of driving completely

or they will actually reduce their high exposure,

so they don't tend to drive at night,

they don't tend to drive in highly congested situations,

so they're actually reducing their exposure to risk.

'We've been examining the accident statistics for groups of drivers

'but as we've seen, everyone's different.'

'A few older drivers could influence policy for all the others.'

Safe young drivers often have to pay inflated insurance premiums

based on the driving of the worst of their group.

But the insurance companies believe they may have a way to address this.

Telematics boxes keep a record of every journey,

including speed, time of day,

location, cornering,

acceleration and braking,

so that insurers can weigh up the risk.

But how do our young drivers feel about being constantly monitored?

I wouldn't have a black box in my car.

My insurance company already have enough details, you know.

Why should I then tell them what I'm getting up to?

I think it would be quite good to see what your driving's like,

so if you think you're a good driver

but find out you're not, you can improve yourself.

So why wouldn't you want anyone knowing how you're driving?

Because sometimes it's not the best style of driving

and it is aggressive

but I feel I'm safe doing it.

Black box in my car, I think it'd be all right.

I don't really do anything stupid.

There's someone monitoring you 24/7. I don't like being monitored 24/7.

The simple fact that parents can see what they're up to

seems to make young drivers safer on its own, as demonstrated

by lower accident rates where telematics boxes are in use.

There are massive opportunities for black box technology

to improve the insurance for younger drivers in particular,

and to improve their safety

because let's face it, if young drivers cannot afford the insurance

at their current situation,

they can afford it by simply driving safe.

Straightforward for everyone.

Could this technology also help

with other high-risk groups like the elderly?

Or are we putting too much power in the hands of the authorities

by allowing ourselves to be tracked and monitored all the time?

Telematics are designed to record and highlight our mistakes,

to help us change.

Other technologies being developed

are taking an even more radical approach.

It's five o'clock in the morning and I'm about to be driven

to a secret location somewhere in Sweden

to experience the future of car technology.

In almost all accidents, human error plays a role.

So if I put it really simplistically, I could say,

if we would remove the human

and drive completely automatically,

there's a huge potential of making traffic safer.

Look at that!

SHE LAUGHS

This is so weird.

My feet and my hands!

I don't need to use either.

This is the first type of driverless car

we're likely to see on our roads.

The necessary technology is already available in many of our cars.

The idea is called platooning.

One driver, in this case in the truck,

takes control of the vehicles behind him.

The technology is here.

I'm sitting in a car that's essentially driving on its own.

It's quite amazing.

Platooning is being developed

by a consortium called SARTRE with EU money.

'It can take control of our cars

'using systems you may already be driving around with - '

lane-keeping aids and adaptive cruise control,

which manage speed, steering and braking.

It's all connected using wi-fi technology.

What I want to know is, there's still a driver in the truck,

what if he makes a mistake?

He will have support systems that warn him to react

and if he's not reacting,

the truck will autonomously brake

-and all the cars behind him as well...

-Will brake.

-Yeah.

And they'll brake in time,

-so that you don't end up shunting the car in front.

-Yes.

Be prepared now, we're going to do a medium harsh braking.

Oh, wow.

She's not touching anything.

-No!

-No feet on pedals.

This is a system for the motorway.

It could be installed, for example, in a scheduled coach service

which is already running up and down a route.

Cars or lorries could drive up behind the vehicle

and join the road train.

But there is one big obstacle -

this kind of technology requires a fundamental change in the law.

All over the world, motoring law is underpinned by one principle -

a car must be under the control of the driver.

In other words, a human MUST be in charge.

But we've seen that humans are the biggest problem.

SARTRE believe the move to more automated cars is inevitable.

And estimates the necessary legislation will take ten years.

'Meanwhile, our need for sleep...'

Wake up!

Our inability to concentrate...

The desire for alcohol and drugs...

There we go.

..to show off to our peers...

..the things that make us human

will continue to make us a danger to ourselves and others on the road.

So what are we prepared to give up in order to save lives?

The right to enjoy a drink?

Or not to be monitored wherever we go?

For many of us, driving is about freedom and personal choice.

It took decades to make seatbelts compulsory.

Seatbelt's there for a reason and it's there to save lives.

I didn't put it on, and I...

I have to deal with the consequences.

Surveillance and driverless technologies

present more complex choices.

But with nearly 2,000 dead on the roads,

are we as a nation paying enough attention to the problems?

Or are we wasting opportunities and lives?

There's no such thing as an accident. Everything has a cause.

Everyone still calls them accidents.

So if the priority is to tackle the causes and cut casualties,

we must all play our part.

If this was some obscure cancer,

then we would be working really hard to produce the solutions.

We know what the solutions are for driving.

We just need to persuade ourselves to implement them.

But as we all know, humans are often reluctant to take the safest course.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd