Young drivers face £10k insurance bill

• 17-year-old quoted £9700 to insure Kia Picanto
• Premiums pricing young drivers off the road
• Parliamentary committee investigating insurance

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Teenage drivers are being forced to pay as much as £10,000 a year to insure themselves to drive, according to research from a road safety charity.

The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) found it'd cost at least £7901 to insure a 17-year-old holder of a full, clean licence to drive a 2007 1.1-litre Kia Picanto in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames. The highest price quoted was more than £9700.

After a year of driving, the annual premium dropped by more than a third.

Neil Greig, the IAM's director of policy and research, said: 'Young drivers can only learn safer driving by practising it, but huge insurance premiums risk pricing them off the road.

'When an insurance premium is matching university tuition fees, innovative thinking is needed to reward the safest young drivers or spread the cost in a more manageable way.

'Many young people need a car to get to work and there are serious implications to the economy of young people who are unable to afford to drive, and to road safety if drivers simply choose to forgo insurance.'

A parliamentary committee will investigate the spiralling costs of car insurance this autumn.