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Driven to Distraction “They wanna talk to their passengers, they wanna carry on their conversations, they wanna be cool, they go a little faster.” Officer Charles Forrester Seventeen-year-old Jason Brady was a popular high school wrestler. “He always had this smile like everythings gonna be OK,” says his friend, eighteen-year-old Jacob. But on March 16, things didnt turn out “OK”. Jason, riding with four other teens, died when the car flipped coming around a turn. The fact that teens can be dangerous drivers is no surprise, but now a study by John Hopkins School of Public Health has quantified the risk and shows how that risk increases with additional teen passengers. A sixteen-year-old to seventeen-year-old with one passenger is fifty percent more likely to die. Two passengers doubles the danger, and with three or more, the chance of a fatal accident more than triples. “They wanna talk to their passengers, they wanna carry on their conversations, they wanna be cool, they go a little faster. They tend to go a little faster when there are more of them in the car,” explains traffic enforcement officer Charles Forrester. Experts say parents need to teach teens how to say “no” when loading in a car with a group of friends. Put them in a drivers safety program or take them to the junk yard to see first hand the smashed up cars.
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WHAT PARENTS SHOULD KNOW We all remember how exciting it was to get our driver’s license. It meant freedom and mobility in our active and exciting young lives. It is no different today with young teens learning to drive and earning their driver’s license. But, statistics show that 16 and 17-year-old drivers run a much higher risk of being involved in an accident than older drivers are. And, if that isn’t enough, new research is now showing that the more teenage passengers in the car, the greater the risk of dying in an accident. Researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health have found that sixteen-year-olds who drive with one passenger are 39% more likely to get killed than those driving alone. That increases to 86% with two passengers and 182% with three or more. And, for 17-year olds, the added risk of having passengers along is even more dramatic: 48% higher with one passenger, 158% higher with two and a frightening 207% higher with three or more young people in the car. The main reasons teens are at a higher risk for being in car crashes are simply their lack of experience and their tendency to take risks while driving. The influence from peers and other stresses and distractions can lead to reckless driving behaviors such as speeding, not wearing a seat belt and driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. The death rate increases dramatically when teenagers drive after 10 p.m., and even more after midnight. Add passengers to that equation and the driver’s chances of dying in a late night accident increase even more. |
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Resources
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National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety – http://www.safroads.org National Safety Council – http://www.nsc.org The American Academy of Pediatrics – http://www.aap.org/family/teendrvr.htm |
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