Teen drivers, who do not have a lot of driving experience, exhibit more risky driving behavior than older drivers. Add distracted driving on top of inexperience and you have the recipe for serious car accidents. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for 16 to 19-year-olds.
Smartphones are great, but in the hands of inexperienced teen drivers, they can become deadly. Anything that takes a teen driver’s attention and focus off the road can lead to an accident. Teen drivers don’t often realize how quickly conditions on the road change. They may not anticipate slowing or stopped traffic the way more experienced drivers do. They may not pay attention to warning signs of shifting lanes or road construction the way more experienced drivers do. Or, they simply may fail to understand how what they see in front of them should warn them of impending danger.
A video circulated around the internet some years ago of a group of teenagers in a car driving down the road. They were video recording an overloaded pickup truck driving in front of them. The truck was swerving from lane to lane as his load shifted back and forth. The truck finally overturned after a load shift and the load was dumped all over the highway. The teen driver taking the video was unable to avoid a collision with the debris.
This is a prime example of inexperience. Had the teen driver been more careful, he would of seen the impending danger as a danger instead of as something funny to record and upload to YouTube.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over 200,000 your drivers sustained injuries in car accidents and 2,270 died in wrecks in 2014. Sixteen young drivers died every day in car wrecks. Furthermore, in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report on 2015 motor vehicle accidents, more than 35,000 people died in car wrecks that year.
When are teen drivers the most vulnerable and likely to get into an accident? Teens receiving their driver’s licenses for the first time have a higher chance of being in an accident during the first few months of driving.
Often, young people are more likely to be in tune with technological advances. Technological gadgets mixed with driving inexperience lead to a higher risk of accident. It’s important for parents and educators to stress the responsibility of driving to teen drivers, and help them understand the dangers of driving while distracted.