Crashes involving young drivers kill or seriously hurt over 23,000 people across past five years
The data suggests that young drivers are more likely to be involved in single vehicle crashes that lead to death or serious injury.
More than 23,000 people were killed or seriously injured in crashes involving young drivers in the past five years, new data has warned.
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Figures show that there were 7,500 accidents where the driver was aged between 17 and 24 between 2021 and 2025.
There was also 4,000 who were passengers being driven by a young driver, and a further 11,600 road users, including pedestrians and people in other cars.
The figures, released by the Department of Transport, showed that around a fifth of all road accidents that end with death or serious injury involve young drivers, defined as those aged 17 to 24.
The data also suggest that young drivers are more likely to be involved in single-vehicle crashes that lead to death or serious injury.
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Rural roads were more dangerous than urban, with twice as many crashes of this kind taking place on country roads, and young people in rural areas twice as likely to be involved in such an accident – 87 per 100,000 people compared with 43 per 100,000 in urban areas.
Police are encouraging parents to continue to supervise their children’s driving in the months after they pass their test, as part of a wider national scheme called Operation Spotlight.
Chief Superintendent Marc Clothier, Deputy National Coordinator in the National Roads Policing Coordination Centre, said: "Young drivers are disproportionately represented in serious and fatal collisions, despite driving substantially fewer miles than the average driver.
"Inexperience and the inability to assess risk are two of the most impactful factors in young driver safety on the roads and every decision taken when driving a vehicle has an impact so this is where parents and peers can be influential.
"Collectively we can support young people to use vehicles and the roads safely, maintaining their independence, helping them to develop their skills and ultimately reducing the risk of harm."
Concerns were raised over the summer about social media posts appearing to celebrate reckless driving, including extreme speeds and driving the wrong way down A-roads.
But Commander Kyle Gordon, National Coordinator at the National Roads Policing Coordination Centre, said the danger of young drivers is not a new phenomenon.
He said: "Long before any of us had smartphones in our pockets, long before any of us knew what an Instagram post was, insurance companies absolutely understood just how dangerous young people could be on the road in the wrong circumstances.
"Young people, for all sorts of reasons, some that are nothing to do with themselves, just their biology and their makeup, are just more dangerous on the road until they understand that risk."
Dr Stephanie Alger, whose son Etienne was killed at the age of 18 when his car came off the road down an embankment in Derbyshire in June 2020, had been concerned that her son was too young to drive at 17.
Dr Alger worried he may have taken additional risks because he had Asperger’s, but also wanted him to be able to socialise.
He was driving in Dove Holes in Derbyshire at 66mph in wet weather and unknowingly had a nail in his tyre at the time of the crash.
The three passengers in the car survived, but Etienne, who preferred to be called Justin, suffered a catastrophic brain injury when the car hit a stone wall.
Dr Alger and her husband have since set up a charity, Just.Bathe, which provides toiletry kits to allow parents to bathe their child one final time as they lie in hospital.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: "Our first road safety strategy in more than a decade is tackling the root causes of deaths and injuries on our roads, and we are consulting on minimum learning periods, lowering the alcohol limit for novice drivers, and cracking down on drug driving."