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According to AAA, teen drivers put everyone on the roadway at risk of a deadly crash, especially if they are bringing teen passengers along for the ride. New research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that when a teen driver has only teen passengers in their vehicle, the fatality rate for all people involved in a crash increased 51 percent. In contrast, when older passengers (35 or older) ride with a teen driver, overall fatality rates in crashes decreased eight percent.
Considering the increased risk created by a combination of teen drivers and teen passengers, AAA emphasizes the need for teen drivers to gain adequate supervised training, especially in different driving scenarios, before taking what could be a fatal drive.
In 2016, teen drivers were involved in more than 1 million police-reported crashes resulting in more than 3,200 deaths. Researchers pinpointed that when teens were carrying teen passengers, fatality rates jumped:
- 56 percent for occupants of other vehicles
- 45 percent for the teen driver
- 17 percent for pedestrians and cyclists
"This analysis shows that in crashes where teen drivers are behind the wheel with a teen passenger, a larger portion of those killed are other road users," said Tiffany Wright, AAA Carolinas Foundation for Traffic Safety president. "This study also found the fatality rate of a teen-driver related crash increased when factors like speeding or driving at night, were introduced."
In South Carolina, there were 46 fatalities and 6,154 injuries from a crash involving a teen driver in 2017, according to the SCDPS. North Carolina recorded 41,364 crashes resulting in 154 fatalities involving teen drivers in 2017, according to the NCDOT.
"These numbers are staggering, and parents and role models can do better to set good examples behind the wheel for our teens," said Wright. "Teens simply lack experience behind the wheel, which increases the odds of a deadly outcome, not just for the teen driver, but for their passengers and others on the roadways.”
Supervised driving — with parents in the passenger seat as the coach — is the first step to teaching teens how to become responsible and safe drivers. AAA offers a multitude of resources at TeenDriving.AAA.com to help coach teen drivers, in addition to these tips:
- Require teens to log at least 100 hours of supervised practice driving with a parent before driving solo.
- Begin by practicing driving in low-risk situations and gradually move to situations that are more complex: highways, nighttime, driving in the rain, and on and around challenging roadways (e.g., curves).
- Allow no more than one non-family passenger under the age of 20 to ride with the teen driver during the first six months of driving.
- Use slightly different routes each practice session.
- Practice adjusting speed based on three factors: visibility, on-road traffic and different road conditions.
“Strong coaching and diversity in practice driving sessions are key when teens have their learners permit. And, once teens have their license, consistent parental involvement is essential,” Wright said.
Other AAA resources available for parents include the StartSmart Online Parent session to coach their teen through the learning-to-drive process and Teaching Your Teen to Drive, a one-hour live action DVD and illustrated in-car handbook that parents can use to support supervised driving lessons. These and other parent/teen resources are available on TeenDriving.AAA.com.
About the study:
Data used in the Everyone’s at Risk 2018 brief came from the 2016 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the Crash Report Sampling Survey System (CRSS). The FARS database includes all motor vehicle crashes on public roadways that resulted in a fatality within 30 days of crash. The CRSS database is a nationally representative probability sample of all police-reported crashed in the United States.
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