14 Apr Teenagers and Cars Can Make A Deadly Combination

According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, fatalities related to teenage driving accidents in North Carolina totaled 250 in just the year of 2008. That stunning statistic is why teenage drivers have the highest risk factor. For both men and women, drivers aged 16 to 19 years of age have the highest average annual crash and traffic violation rates of any other age group. A recent study done by The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance Companies found that teen drivers are involved in fatal crashes at four times the rate of adults. But why is this?                                             

The study found that of the 800 crashes they researched, 75% were due to a critical teen mistake with three common errors accounting for nearly half of all the serious accidents….

1. Poor Hazard Detection – Teenagers lack the ability to detect hazards in the driving environment because of their lack of ability in information-gathering and their slower perception rate.

    -Of the 75% of teenage critical error-caused accidents, 21% occurred due to the lack of scanning to notice hazards.

2. Risk Taking – Due to the attitude of teenagers that they are invincible, they become overconfident in their driving abilities. Therefore, young drivers are more likely to take risks such as speeding, tailgating, running red lights, ignored traffic signs, passing dangerously, and in general ignoring the laws of the road.

    -21% of the accidents in the study occurred due to going too fast for road conditions (such as driving too fast and inability to navigate the curves of the road).

3. Carrying Passengers – The risk of teens being in a crash rises 3.6 times higher when they are driving with passengers as compared to when they are driving alone (and the risk continues rising as the number of passengers increase). This statistic is due to the fact that passengers may distract the young driver, and they may also encourage them to take more risks while driving.

    -20% of the teenage crashes occurred due to them being distracted by something inside the vehicle.

Knowing these facts could help in the future to try to stop the increasing rate of teenage driving fatalities. By targeting driver education and teenage parents and sharing these facts with them, these critical errors could be cut back and a lot of young lives could be saved.

Do you have a teenager that’s about to hit the road for the first time? Be sure to share this information with them to keep them safe and sound in the future. Don’t forget to call Spivey Insurance today so that we can help find the best North Carolina auto insurance policy for you and your family! With the high risk factor of teenage drivers, let us find the car insurance that will best protect your loved ones without costing you an arm and a leg! Call today or visit our website at Spiveyinsurancegroup.com. Serving the insurance needs of the Charlotte, NC area, we’re here to help!