Experienced and seasoned drivers are well aware that teens are frequently the most dangerous, and most at-risk, motorists on the road. Teen drivers’ frequent handicaps of elevated distraction and general inexperience can turn what would usually be an otherwise manageable driving situation into a serious, even potentially fatal, accident.
Earlier this week, new statistics released by the Governors Highway Safety Association, gathered from all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, only further confirmed this common presumption. Across the nation’s roadways, including Ohio, fatal traffic accidents claiming the lives of a teenage driver rose 19 percent in the first half of 2012 when compared to the same period in the year prior.
According to the GHSA’s report, 240 16 and 17-year-olds in the first half of 2012 were killed in a fatal accident on the road, an increase from 202 in the same portion of 2011. Teen driver deaths rose 3 percent over the entirety of 2011, and if figures from the rest of 2012 hold with these findings, the year will signal the second consecutive rise in teen car and truck accident deaths after what had previously been a long-sustained decline.
Even more worrisome is an additional review of states’ graduated driver licensing programs as being widely deficient in their preparing teenagers for safe driving. The Vice President of the National Safety Council specifically asserted that no state in the country meets the council’s “best-practice GDL laws.”
It is only more tragic when these general statistics become a specific reality, and those who have been injured or lost a loved one in an auto accident should immediately contact an experienced legal professional.
Source: USA Today, “Deaths surge among youngest drivers,” Larry Copeland, Feb. 26, 2013
