Young drivers, just passed their test, are most at risk on the roads. But if you think the teenagers with the souped up cars drive the most dangerously, think again

IT'S 7.30pm on a damp, so-called summer's evening in Lanarkshire. I am heading up the M74 on my way to Strathclyde Country Park.

Motorway lanes are shut off between Bothwell and Motherwell and speed cameras are in place at regular intervals, keeping drivers down to 40mph while a bridge-strengthening project takes place. This stretch of motorway is a notorious spot for "boy racers", as they get called ­ young, usually male drivers, trying to outdo each other by revving up their engines and taking part in shows of bravado. But tonight, the new slow-down system has temporarily put an end to this perilous past-time.

I pull up outside the Express Holiday Inn.

Becky, who I am here to meet, is standing proudly outside her modified black Ford Escort, which is fully kitted out with tinted windows, an exhaust the size of a chimney and huge spoiler.

A few guys are looking on, admiring its paint job. A petite, pretty girl, at 27, Becky looks much younger than her years and certainly doesn't fit the boy-racer stereotype. A leading participant in the Strathycruise, a group of up to 200 modified car enthusiasts who meet every Sunday night in the MFI car park in Hamilton (they used to meet in Strathclyde Country Park and then in the car park outside the Holiday Inn, until both were barricaded off by police), Becky's more concerned about promoting road safety than she is with thwarting it.

Into the car scene since she was 15, Becky's cheesed off that people think because you have a modified car, you are automatically a nuisance on the road. "The boy-racer stereotype is annoying" she tells me "but we understand why it happens and we discourage careless driving." That previous weekend, an accident occurred when a modified car hit a lamp-post just outside where the cruise takes place.

We follow Becky over to the MFI car park.

There's only a handful of cars. Probably on account of the weather, no doughnuts (a circle of burnt rubber made by spinning a rear wheel on the spot) or burn outs (where the driver pulls up the handbrake, holds the clutch down, holds the car at high revs and releases the clutch, causing the drive wheels to spin round and round while the car remains motionless) are going on, just a lot of unthreatening looking Fiestas and Puntos circling the car park. On a good night, numbers can get up to between 200 and 300, with others queuing up to get in.

As it gets later, horns start beeping and basses start pumping and I decide to venture further afield and speak to some of the other young drivers. The first to open his doors and invite me in is 17-year-old Graeme Charnley from Airdrie, the proud owner of a 1.3 litre Mini Cooper who passed his test nearly a year ago and has a clean licence. The car looks smashing ­ metallic black with blue pearl lacquer, customised with original old-style mini cooper body-kit parts (as an apprentice mechanic, Graeme fitted them himself). It glistens with its alloy wheels, extra lights, a new shiny front grill, full sound system, televisions wired up to a DVD player and even a PlayStation in the back. It cost Graeme seven and a half grand to do up, twice the value of the car itself. He loves driving, blasting the music up loud as he cruises.

"My car's the most important thing in my life, " Graeme says. "For me, going out to a cruise is meeting new people, people with nice cars. But you see the people who just want to come in and race up and down and I totally disagree with that. The people with the nice cars, they just want to sit and not cause trouble. I take pride in my car. I polish it every day. You don't spend that money and that time to wreck it. Those who want to race, they get booed away." As if on cue, three young boys whiz by in a shabby looking Corsa. On their tail comes a Suzuki Ignis Sport. I can smell burning, as if someone's brakes or clutch has been done in.

Behind them is the duel carriageway, "the duelly", a notorious racing spot where the accident occurred the previous weekend.

Graeme points at one of the speeding cars:

"They think that's funny, but it's not funny when they run into somebody, bloody idiot. They've been told not to come back. And see that car there?", he says pointing to a black Nissan Skyline parked up next to him, with a couple of guys and girls drinking in the back, "that's got about 400 bhp (brake horse power ­ apparently quite fast). That's race-car material, that shouldn't be on the road." Graeme knows what it's like for people to draw up next to you and challenge you to a race. His advice is: "If you have a nice car, people'll sit next to you at a set of lights, rev up their engines and want to race you away. Don't get wound up. Just blank them. You're better than that. You've spent all that money on your car, you don't want to be racing about giving yourself a bad name. At the end of the day, you're the one who's making a fool of yourself.

If you bump your car or run into, or hurt somebody, you're to blame." Further round the car park, sitting low down in his black Golf with smoked-out limo-black windows in the back and two super woofer 6x9 speakers on the parcel shelf is David McInally, 18. A bank worker by day and a night club steward by night, David wholeheartedly agrees with Graeme. "People challenge you, and you just rev the engine and drive on. All young drivers need to watch out. People who don't want to get involved in the racing scene can end up involved, and if you get caught up in it, there could be fatalities.

It's no joke." Paul Grainger, 18, in his extremely flash-looking yellow Honda CRX Del Sol, nods in agreement.

A wee silver VW Beetle with private number plates and 19-inch alloy wheels scoots up and I hop in the back. At the wheel is Natalie Finlayson, 19, from Bellshill, who is a bank clerk with the HSBC . "People can get a bit carried away and it can get a bit dangerous. I don't go fast on the roads ­ my engine's not big enough for a start, and I wouldn't put other people in danger. I prefer to sit about and look for talent -" she laughs.

As the night draws to a close, the cars start to tail off into the night. Some owners have got school in the morning, others have to work, but their message to all is drive safely. Racing is a mug's game.

www.strathycruise.com
www.roadsafetyscotland.org.uk
www.getinlane.com

The fast and the furious

On average 2000 young people in Scotland pass their practical driving tests every month Young drivers in Scotland represent nearly 5-per cent of licence holders l There were 160 17-19 year old males killed or seriously injured on Scotland's roads in 2003 1 in 5 new drivers in Scotland will be involved in an accident in their first year of driving alone Young drivers in Scotland are more than twice as likely to be killed or seriously injured in an accident in a rural area than a built up area 17-22 year old Scottish males are more likely to be involved in an accident than any other age group Young drivers show greater outward anger towards other drivers Young male drivers are the highest violators of the Highway Code i. e.

more likely to speed, race, close follow, undertake, drink and drug drive The New Drivers Act puts new drivers 'on probation' for two years from the time they pass their driving test. If the driver receives six or more penalty points in this time they lose their licence and go back to 'learner' status

'MIRACLE NO-ONE DIED'

BEN is 30 and works for a graphic design company in Edinburgh. He lost his licence when he was 19 and has been paying the consequences ever since

I HAD just passed my test. I took my Dad's Jaguar ­ I drove a Fiesta ­ to try to impress a girl. Both me and the girl were in the car. I was heavily drunk on Depth Charges [a pint of lager with a spirit shot dropped in it] and I crashed the car into two sets of traffic lights in Solihull town centre. I knocked both the lights down, but by some miracle no-one was hurt. I could have killed somebody. That's hard to deal with. I was so lucky.

At the time, I thought I could get away with anything. I thought I was invincible, young, carefree, I could do whatever I wanted.

I loved driving ­ it was something I'd looked forward to all my life, getting my independence, driving my mates around, listening to music. To have that taken away from me when I'd just passed my test was very hard.

It wasn't until the moment of the accident that I realised that I was an adult and that these things wouldn't be tolerated. I was arrested, got a two-year ban, points on my licence, 200 hours community service and a GBP2000 fine, plus the cost of replacing the traffic lights. It really turned my life around and I grew up pretty sharpish because of it.

I felt completely disgusted with myself for what I had done, especially in regards to my family. It was on my own doorstep, everyone knew about it and the shame was enormous. For months after, I didn't go out; I didn't want people to see me, as I knew they would point and talk. The press picked up the story and that was a real added pressure to my family.

At that time, I thought what I was doing ­ speeding and drink-driving ­ would make me quite attractive, that I'd look like a bit of rogue and it would make me more interesting.

But in actual fact, what you are doing is making yourself look more stupid. At the end of the day, everyone is just pointing their finger at you saying "there's the idiot, that nutter who doesn't care about anybody who crashed the car", rather than "there's that cool guy".

No matter how cool you think you look, no matter how much you feel you are pushing the boundaries, enjoying the buzz, it's not worth it to you or the public around you, who could potentially get hurt.

Since then, I haven't had a single point on my licence. It took me a long time to get back to zero and get low insurance.

My cousin Amelia was killed in a drink-driving accident just before Christmas. She was 21, an only child of a single parent.

To see what that does is a hell of a thing. The guy driving the car who ran into her was also 21. That could have been me and that's a terrifying thought.