There are roughly 40,000 fatal car accidents in the United States every year. For many years, this number was trending down, although it has recently started trending back up lately. These accidents happen for many reasons, from drunk driving to distracted driving to simple mistakes like speeding or lane violations – and much more.
But do you know which drivers are the most likely to be involved in these accidents? Even though crashes have numerous root causes, you can still track the statistics and find out which age group is most likely to cause a serious accident. What you’ll find is that teenage drivers, despite only spanning three years and making up one of the smallest age groups, have the highest fatal accident rate. For this reason, they are considered to be a group of drivers that creates a disproportionate amount of risk on the road.
Why does this happen?
Teen drivers cause accidents for numerous reasons. For instance, distracted driving was noted above, and cellphone distraction is very common with young people. They may cause accidents while they are using social media, typing text messages, finding music to listen to in the car or even just looking down to use a GPS.
But the main reason that teens cause accidents at a higher rate is because they don’t have as much experience as drivers. Think about any task that someone tries to learn how to do. Experience is critical, and they’re going to get much better over time. But they’re going to make mistakes along the way, especially with difficult and highly technical tasks.
Driving is certainly a technical task, and the problem is that these mistakes made by teens as they learn can have serious ramifications for other individuals on the road with them. Teen drivers will get better and their accident rates tend to go down quickly as they get older, but there are still numerous crashes in that timespan.
Have you been injured?
If you’ve been injured in an accident caused by another driver, or if you have lost a loved one, then it’s important for you to know about all of the legal options you have to seek compensation.