In the year 2011 the program BF17 ("Begleitetes Fahren ab 17" / "Accompanied Driving from 17 on") was introduced in Germany.
Young people participating in this program can get their car driving license already at the age of 17, one year before the regular permission age, and can drive as long as they are accompanied by an adult.
The benefit of this program was said to be a reduction of driving accidents because young drivers get more expertise together with an experienced companion.
Because now more than 10 years have passed since the introduction of BF17, it is interesting to take a look, if this hope of fewer accidents can be confirmed. This is done in this project by looking at the number of driving accidents among young drivers in combination with the numbers of BF17 participants in the last years. First it is relevant to see how accepted this BF17 program is among young people, and if enough people are participating so that a meaningful influence on the accident numbers can be deduced. The question then is if a correlation can be found in those two numbers: Has an increasing number of BF17 participants led to fewer driving accidents among young people?
In summary, the following questions should be answered in this project:
- Are enough young people using the BF17 program, so that a relevant influence in the accidents can be even deduced from the program?
- Did the introduction of BF17 reduce the number of accidents among young drivers?
- Could BF17 have any negative effect (for example an increase of accidents that already 17-year-olds have)?
To directly get to the final report presenting the final results of this project, click here: Final report
You find a recorded 10-minute-presentation of the report here: Video. The slides of this presentation are also uploaded in this repository: Slides.
Detailed statistics of driving permissions on probation (= new driving licenses) in Germany of the Kraftfahrbundesamt. Grouped by year, license type and age. Link: https://www.kba.de/DE/Statistik/Kraftfahrer/Fahrerlaubnisse/FahrerlaubnisProbe/fahrerlaubnisprobe_node.html
Used under the Data licence Germany – attribution – version 2.0 available under http://www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0
Number of driving accidents and information about the people who caused the accidents in Germany grouped by year by the Statistisches Bundesamt of Germany. Link: https://www-genesis.destatis.de/genesis//online?operation=table&code=46241-0011&bypass=true&levelindex=1&levelid=1698497814414#abreadcrumb
Used under the Data licence Germany – attribution – version 2.0 available under http://www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0