The overriding message? It's not your car or the "road conditions" that are most likely to kill you. It's your own driving. Men are more often 'careless, reckless or in a hurry', or 'travelling too fast for conditions'. Women are more likely to be 'inexperienced', but less likely to have been drinking.
Age is a factor. Older drivers more frequently fail to look properly while younger ones are more likely to be going too fast, either for the limit, or the conditions.
Time of day is important; between 7pm-7am 'loss of control' is the key factor while at other times, it's the familiar 'failed to look properly'. Motorists are more likely to be 'distracted or impaired' at weekends (17 per cent) than on weekdays (10 per cent).
"Drivers can learn a lot by reading this and if you take just one thing away from it," says Greig, "it's that paying a little more attention, taking that little bit more time to look properly, will save your life. Mostly, crashes aren't about cars going dramatically out of control and up in smoke. It's small errors suddenly having greater consequences. But if you are a good, trained driver, you can avoid becoming a statistic." And you'll get to that appointment on time, too.
