With the advent of automobiles more and more people are dying due to car crash. However, these days more and more teens are dying in teen driver crash and therefore teen driver safety is really becoming a concern for all the road safety policymakers and people of the United States. As per the national research report by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance Companies more than 40,000 people have lost their lives in teen driver crash and the numbers are increasing every year. The research showed that more than half a million people died in teen driver crash incidents in the year 2008.
The reports also showed that nearly 30% of the victims are not even present in the car at the time of crash. This indicates that teen driver crash is not just about the teens behind the wheels but also the pedestrians and cyclists and other people who unfortunately become the part of the crash and die. According to Dennis Durbin, Co-Scientific Director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at CHOP and co-author of the report such incidents are hard to stop because policymakers alone cannot stop it. He further suggested that everybody including those who don’t have teen driver at home should ensure that the kids in their locality are driving the car safely and that they would not crash into somebody.
During the research there were many painful and shocking facts that came up which includes that there are more teen deaths because of car crash than suicides and cancer combined together. However the research report has provided some substantial information that can be used in the future to curb such car crash incidents. The report reveals that there were four key patterns found which includes speeding, use of alcohol, not wearing seat belts and distracted driving. In the research it was found that in more than 50% of the teen driver crash incidents the driver was speeding the car and was had not put on seat belts for safety. In 40% of the cases the driver had positive blood alcohol level and in 16% of the cases the death was because of distracted driving.
