Young drivers taking risks on NSW roads don’t necessarily grow out of dangerous behaviour – they’re just more likely to crash and end up in hospital, a 13-year review of 21,000 young P-platers has found.

Compared to the safest young drivers, the riskiest of their counterparts, aged 17–24 years in 2003-04, had a 36 per cent higher crash rate, finds research published in Preventive Medicine.