Causes Of Teen Road Accidents
As the population growing, upbringing of new functioning individuals of the society grows even more. Specifically teens that has been participating and had been ever active with these notions for their preparation becoming an adult. One of things that most teen has been into is driving a car, since it is accessible and realy puts them in an adult-like situation where they learn their respective responsibilities and its consequences. Teen drivers has significant number as 6.4% or more than 13 million of total licensed drivers in the U.S. consist of teens, namely 15 above and 20 below years old. It is worrying that these numbers are incorporated with fatal accidents since 11% out of the total fatal crashes in the U.S. involves 15 to 20 years old and most of them were male, number of 3,590 estimatedly while contradictory, female teens were involved at only 1,558 fatal crashes yearly.
Though, even given these statistics, parents and guardians have still mixed opinion and decision regarding the dilemma to whether let teens to drive or not. For some parents, car isn’t for every teen since they are at their peak of “fun-seeking” stage and may tend to do dangerous stuff while driving in order to satisfy themselves. Some parents do agree on letting their teens drive as what previously said, it serves as their practical lession for being a responsible child and a step forward becoming a functioning member of the society. To give better outlook in regards to the topic for the readers, let us see how teen drivers do in the retrospec.
Statistics for Teen Drivers Related
From the recent statistics from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on 2017, about 300,000 teens were treated in emergency rooms due to injuries sustained in car accidents and approximately 2,364 teens were killed. This means approximately six teens die every day due to car accidents, and it is a sobering statistic. What are some of the causes of teen car accidents? Read on to find out.
- In 2018, 4,492 teens aging 15 to 20 years old has been involved in fatal accidents. 1,719 of them are drivers and 908 of them are occupants and others are victims or bystander that happened to be caught in the accident.
- Ages 16 to 20 years old has an involvement rate of 34% as this specific age group has been involved in 4,061 accidents out of total of 51,490.
- In the same year, almost 12 million registered and licensed teen drivers are recorded and they consist the 5.3% of total drivers of more than 225 million.
- In the alcohol related fatal crashes, teens aging 16-20 has above 15% involvement rate, which is worrying since numbers are near compared to grown-ups rate.
Causes of Teenage Road Accidents
1. Lack Of Experience and Panic Driving
Most teenagers engage in driving cars really early and are eager to learn. Though, they have better reaction time, vision and field view compared to older drivers but they still lack experience including what to do next when involved in an emergency and road etiquette which is imperative. Some new teens drivers who lost their control in their situation tend to panic and lose their senses that they are on road and eventually commit a mistake which leads to an accident.
Before letting a teen drive alone, it is recommended for their parents or guardians to have them drive while in your watch, teach them things in their course of driving and instill them new wisdom and proper conduct to reduce tendency of crashing unto someone. It goes without saying but, when you say instill knowledge, it includes common road laws, reading signs and situations, and techniques and tips to avoid road rage and other traffic-related phenomenon.
2. Practicing Distracted Driving
For most teenagers, distracted driving has been a continuing problem among their age group since their generation is the most attached to technology including mobile phones. Teens usage of phones while driving is the main reason of spike of accident rate of teens involving distracted driving as it diverts driver’s attention to what he is doing instead of focusing on driving and be wary of incoming risks such as other driver, bad road condition and other risks, and phones tend to delay driver’s reacting to an emergency if so happen.
Some teens may not realize yet that driving requires full attention and there is no space for distractions as it contributes to the increase of chances in making a fatal accident to occur.
3. Overspeeding and Drunk Driving
In a research done by Youth, teen drivers tend to put themselves in a pinch situation such as running and slipping themselves in a tight traffic, indecisive laning and overspeeding and sometimes drunk driving which is evidently true as we can see them daily driving along American roads.
This increases the risk of being involved or cause a road crash by two folds estimately, these collectively has the highest reported involvement or serves as a factor of fatal accidents.
Ryan Injury Lawyers
If you are ever involved in an accident and believed that it was caused by an legal age teenager due to these reasons, then you can file an injury claim. Liabilities does often leave victims emotional and physical damage aside, financial damage following an accident and does more than these two if ever they don’t have enough to cover damages done by the at fault driver, that is why injury claim is essential for completing your justice. Ryan Injury Lawyers is an Ohio based injury law firm that consists of attorneys that has 40 years of experience of representing victims of personal injury, wrongful death, and medical malpractice. Call our office now for free legal consultation.