The fleet software firm analysed users of its Licence Link licence checking software and broke down the percentage of drivers with driving licence endorsement points by age.

CFC's aim was to see if it's true that the youngest and oldest drivers pose the greatest accident risk for fleets by looking at the points added to their licence.
 
In the "No points" and "1-4 points" categories, this assumption held true with the 17-24 and 65+ bands having the most points. However, in the higher risk categories of "5-8 points" and "9-plus points", the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups were more common.

Balanced against these figures were the percentage of drivers with points in each category. The proportion of those with 1-4 points is 14.83% while only 3.29% have 5-8 points and just 0.52% have 9 plus. CFC says that this shows that while older and younger drivers with lower numbers of points are much more common, there are a small number of middle-aged drivers who tend to have the very highest number of points.

While Neville Briggs, managing director at CFC, said that the companys figures largely confirmn : 'Perceived wisdom in risk management for many years has been that the youngest and oldest drivers represent the highest risk and these figures largely confirm that.
 
'Younger drivers may lack road experience and because of this are poorer judges of road situations, while older drivers will tend to have poorer reaction times and a general decline in awareness.
 
“This means that drivers aged below 24 and above 65 may require special attention when it comes to employers ensuring that everything reasonable is done to prevent them from being involved in accidents.”
 
However, Briggs added, the new research and anecdotal evidence suggested that a few middle aged drivers could become a risk management headache by falling into a cycle of gathering endorsement points and waiting for them to elapse.
 
He said: “While the actual numbers of these drivers is not high – they form a tiny percentage of our overall research – they do suggest that the very highest risk drivers are the ones who should be at the height of their competence and that is perhaps the issue.
 
“Some of these middle aged drivers in high risk categories are a definite concern for their managers because they suffer from a high degree of overconfidence. For these drivers, some form of remedial action such as training should be considered, before the point is reached where their licence is taken away or a serious accident occurs.”