Nearly three-quarters of motorists killed or seriously injured in crashes in Birmingham are men.

Official police data shows a total of 186 car drivers were fatally or badly hurt on the city’s roads in 2016 and 2017 - the latest years for which detailed information is available.

Some 138 of the 186 drivers were male, while just 48 were female.

Of the 10 drivers who were killed, every single one was a man.

The data shows young male drivers are particularly over-represented in the casualty statistics.

The majority of the 138 male drivers hurt or killed were aged under 40, with roughly one-third (45 in all) aged between 20 and 29.

The data comes from the Stats19 database - a comprehensive record of the circumstances of single accidents in which someone was hurt or killed on the roads, published by the Department for Transport.

Police tape across a road near to the site where seven people died when an historic Hawker Hunter fighter jet plummeted on to the A27 at Shoreham in West Sussex after failing to pull out of a loop manoeuvre. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday August 23, 2015. More bodies may be found as investigators and emergency services continue to search the scene of the Shoreham Airshow plane crash, police said. See PA story AIR Crash. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire

Road safety campaigners called the figures “deeply concerning” and said a toxic mixture of inexperience and over-confidence among young male drivers was to blame.

Across the UK as a whole, 13,573 drivers and 6,433 passengers were killed or seriously injured in 2016 and 2017.

Some 65 per cent of the drivers were men - but only 45 per cent of the passengers.

Men were even more likely to be the drivers when only fatal incidents were counted.

A total of 1,151 drivers were killed in 2016 and 2017 - and 886 of them, or 77 per cent, were male.

More than a third of all drivers killed - 495 in all - were men aged between 20 and 40.

"Deeply concerning"

Jack Kushner, spokesperson for Brake, the road safety charity, said: “These figures are deeply concerning and highlight the importance of targeted action to improve male driving behaviours.

“A dangerous combination of inexperience and over-confidence makes younger drivers a high road safety risk, which is why Brake is calling for the introduction of a comprehensive Graduated Driver Licensing system in the UK.

“A GDL system would incorporate a mandatory learning period and post-test training, ensuring that all new drivers had the necessary tools and knowledge to drive safely on our roads.”

Nick Lloyd, acting head of road safety for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, said: “Young male drivers have a greater crash risk compared to the general driving population largely because of their inexperience and over- confidence, explaining why one in five new drivers will be involved in a collision in their first six months of driving.

“Young male drivers, until they have gained driving experience have poorer visual awareness than a more experienced driver and display a smaller range of horizontal scanning of the road, look closer to the front of the vehicle, check their mirrors less and focus more on stationary objects than moving objects.”