If you're between the ages of 17 and 22 years old, live in the United Kingdom and just got your license to drive, surveys point to a very small percentage of you actually obtaining insurance to drive legally. Those surveys also found a good 20 percent of you ending up driving illegally by not obtaining any sort of insurance to begin with. And then there's that large group of you who will have your parents sign the insurance documents under their name so that the premiums are down significantly.

Well there's a good reason why so many have defected from obeying the rules.

Insurance.

That element that's the bane of any new driver's experience behind the wheel in Singapore seems somehow trivial compared to the problem new drivers are facing over in the UK. When I was 26, I wanted to buy myself an old Ford XR3i with two years left. My insurance quote? $3,500.

In the UK, a new driver will need to fork out almost $1,110. A MONTH!

That works out to be nearly $13,300 a year!!

And while we know many of our friends who got their parents to "front" their insurance for the car, it should be known that when it comes to claiming after an accident, a simple investigation by the insurance company is all it needs to refute your claim and leave you in a bitter mess.

Other results from the study UK includes, 74 percent of deaths amongst young adults now happen on the road, one in five new drivers crashing within six months of driving and the highest risk drivers being those that are young and mail. Ironically not for drink driving but rather intoxicated with adrenalin instead. I personally would have figured the most common cause of death in young adults who just passed their test was their insurance quote.

So if you're a new driver and you're in the market for a spanking new ride, rather than balk, embrace your insurance quote, accept that you will tend to me stupid at times and that you'll need time to get used to how some people in Singapore drive their own cars. If that doesn't work, take comfort in the fact that there's someone exactly like you in the UK who just got a heart attack from his insurance quote.