Teenagers have very high auto accident rates, and they have some of the highest fatal crash rates in the country. This is something that is very consistent from year to year, and there’s clearly a drop up in rates as these drivers get older, so it seems that teenagers themselves are the reason.
But you still may be wondering why. Maybe you’re a parent who has a teenage driver. Maybe you just know that you have to share the road with other teenagers who may cause a crash. Why is it that these rates are so high?
They sometimes don’t understand the danger
One potential reason is that they fail to recognize exactly how dangerous specific situations are. This can lead them to take risks that older drivers simply wouldn’t take. You often see young people get involved in things like street racing, for instance. It’s clearly very dangerous and it’s also a pointless activity, but young people will sometimes enjoy how thrilling it feels and they’ll do it anyway because they don’t really grasp the risk.
They’re usually very inexperienced
Going hand-in-hand with this is the fact that teen drivers are typically quite inexperienced and just don’t have that many hours or miles on their driving record. The reason that people get better as they get older isn’t just because of their age, but because of the time they’ve spent practicing. It is simply going to take a few years for teens to gain this practice and thereby get better at driving.
They don’t really think anything bad will happen
You may have heard people talk about how teenagers often feel invincible or like nothing bad is really going to occur. It all sounds theoretical. They know that they could be involved in a car accident, technically speaking, but they don’t honestly believe that they will. This sense of invincibility is shattered in a serious crash, of course, but by that point it has already led to the accident.
Have you been injured?
If you have been involved in an accident that was caused by a tee driver and you’ve sustained serious injuries, you may need to seek financial compensation for your medical bills and other costs.