Children could be picking up bad habits for their future driving careers by watching how their parents behave behind the wheel, the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has warned.
The motoring organisation has highlighted a range of bad practices exhibited by drivers that could be picked up by young passengers, including failing to wear a seat belt, speeding in residential areas, driving too close to the car in front and being abusive to other road users.
Other bad practices which the group says children may see as acceptable include talking on mobile phones while driving, or using them to text or email.
And chief examiner Peter Rodger said that it is not enough for parents to tell children how they should act while doing the opposite. He pointed to children with a "blasé attitude to safety inherited from their parents" as a contributing factor in young adults being the "most vulnerable" group of road users. According to the IAM there were 20,000 road casualties among 16-19-year-olds last year.
"If you never wear a seat belt, it is seen as acceptable by your child, even if you insist they wear one as they're growing up," Rodger said.
According to IAM research, drivers under 25 years old have an "exceptionally high risk" of being in a crash, with the most at-risk group being the under-20s.
And Rodger said that children are not just influenced by adults' behaviour behind the wheel, adding that young children are likely to "emulate" parents who cross the road without waiting for the green man, or who fail to look for traffic before crossing.
The warning comes after a call for a 'road safety decade' at the close of the first global ministerial road safety conference, which heard that road accidents are the leading cause of death worldwide for young people aged 5-29.
