Tag Archive: teen crashes
When Teen Crashes Hit Close To Home
October 30, 2014
I’ve been writing articles on teen crashes and teen driving safety for years and, quite frankly, it’s becoming more and more difficult to come up with something new and fresh when the teens keep killing themselves the same way month after month.
Last week the issue hit close to home when one of my Grandson’s close friends was killed in a car crash. The details were sketchy because the crash is still being investigated but, according to the newspaper account, he applied his brakes when another vehicle entered the road, the passenger side wheels left the roadway and it appears he over-corrected. His vehicle flipped approximately four or five times and, because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, he was ejected from the vehicle. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.
His passengers who were wearing seat belts weren’t seriously injured and were cleared at the scene.
In August, in the “Ask the Driving School Instructor” column, I answered a question on the most common type of car crash experienced by teens. In that column I wrote that the most common type of fatal teen crashes, according to all the news reports I read, involved teen drivers who:
- were either distracted, speeding, or both;
- veered off the road;
- over-corrected, sending their vehicle into a spin or tumbling over; and
- weren’t wearing a seat belt.
The tragic thing about this and all the other crashes that kill more than five teen drivers a day is that they were so easily preventable.
Teens need to be taught how to safely recover if their vehicle leaves the side of the road. The natural instinct is to jerk the steering wheel back toward the roadway (over-correct) but, at high speeds, that can cause the vehicle to spin out or flip over. If young drivers find themselves in that position, they should be taught not to give into that natural instinct to jerk the wheel back toward the road. Instead, they should grip the wheel, watch where they’re going and slow the vehicle down. After slowing to a safe speed and checking that the roadway is clear, they can then turn the wheel to reenter the road.
Most important of all, teens need to learn the importance of wearing a seat belt. Among the 16 to 20 year old age group, 55 percent of the vehicle occupants who were killed in teen crashes in 2012 weren’t wearing a seat belt. No matter how bad the crash may be, you’re always better off and have a far greater chance of surviving a crash if you’re properly buckled into your seat belt and shoulder harness. Had he been wearing his seat belt, he may have walked away from the crash with his friends. If this young man’s grieving friends take anything else away from this crash, hopefully they will learn to always wear a seat belt.
There’s no such thing as a car accident! Accidents are something we have no control over. Car crashes happen when one or more drivers make a bad choice that leads to tragic consequences. Even if you can’t avoid a crash, you can still make the right choices to survive it.
Study Shows That GDL Laws Work; To An Extent
July 30, 2012
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in September 2011 shows that the death rate for teen drivers under the age of 18 has fallen dramatically over the past several years. However, the good news in this study comes with a downside; the rate of fatal crashes for teen drivers over the age of 18 has risen. The reason for the increase isn’t totally certain but there are a couple of factors that some feel have led to the increase.
The Graduated Driving License (GDL) laws are working as they were designed. GDL laws place restrictions on new teen drivers that limit the number of passengers they can carry, the hours that they can drive, and their ability to use cell phones while driving. These laws were designed to limit all of the distractions that lead to so many teen deaths and, according to the researchers, they have resulted in 1,348 fewer crashes among 16 year olds.
Part of the reason for the increase in the death rate for 18 year olds is that they are now free of those restrictions and, with more passengers in the car and the ability to drive late a t night, they may be entering into driving situations that they have never experienced before and are unable to cope with.
Another reason that some experts have noted is that, with the restrictions placed on 16 year olds to complete driver training prior to getting their license, many teens are now waiting until they are 18 before getting a license. At the age of 18, there is often no requirement for any type of formal classroom or behind the wheel training. The requirement to hold a learner’s permit for a year and document up to 50 hours of supervised driving experience is also lifted for 18 year olds.
By waiting until they are 18, these drivers can often get their license in just a few weeks by passing what is generally a pretty easy driving test at the DMV. They are foregoing a lot of good training that teaches them the skills necessary to avoid collisions on the road.
If you have a teen at home that is waiting until age 18, you should insist that he or she still take all of the required courses required of 16 year olds and get at least 50 hours (ten at night) of supervised driving experience before allowing them to get their license.