GMAC Car Insurance Company recently advised its  appointed agents, including, InsureDirect.com,  of a very interesting set of statistics — One that seems to reinforce the trend towards higher insurance premiums for young drivers.

GMAC has been studying the performance of licensed drivers of all ages behind the wheel on an annual basis. They have referred to this annual study as the GMAC National Drivers Test. Over the last 7 years, GMAC has performed this exam of the licensed driving community. Further; the statistics  contributed are considerable and important.

According to the most recent GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test, 40% of young adult drivers,  18-24, would fail their State’s New Drivers Test if required to take it today.

While the youngest group of drivers prove to be the least knowledgeable when it comes to safe driving, 3.2 drivers out of 10 (25-34 year older drivers) would also fail their home states driver’s test if they were required to take that test again today.

Very interesting;  30% of drivers ages 25-34 failed the National Drivers Test. Sadly, this is a 5% increase in their failure rate since 2009. All these age groups make up a huge portion of the nearly 40 million estimated people deemed unfit drivers on US streets and highways today. This is a very sad statistic.

Interestingly, the news regarding young drivers was not as bad as you would think.  The statistics this year showed 80% of new drivers who had taken the GMAC National Drivers Test, 16-17 years of age, showed they would pass the test if they were required to take their States Driving Test today.

This is really good news for everyone driving on the roads today. As a parent myself this is good news for all parents who have teens in the family which will be soon getting behind the wheel of the family car.

The most unsurprising finding of this year’s GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test was the information regarding older drivers. Bottom line; older drivers are among the safest drivers on the road today.  The older drivers in this years test did achieve higher test scores than younger drivers. Those drivers 45-59 (16%) and those 60-65 (13%), received the lowest failure rates of all age groups. Older drivers are safer drivers, on average.

If you want to take the GMAC National Drivers Test; visit  www.gmacinsurance.com and click on the National Drivers Test button to take the test.