A teen driver

Most safety experts (and insurance companies) know that the risks of accidents are higher for teenage drivers than other drivers. More teenagers are killed from motor vehicle crashes than from any other cause.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said that 5,334 teenage drivers, age 16 to 19, got into fatal crashes in 2005, resulting in the death of 2,330 drivers and 963 passengers, also teenagers.

The common causes for teenage crashes are really youth and inexperience. These two factors make for a lethal combination, according to an official of Make Roads Safe, a nonprofit organization.

While beginners in driving tend to be involved in more crashes than experienced drivers, whatever the age, new teenage drivers are especially prone to behavior that leads to accidents. This characteristic can be considered inherent to their still developing consciousness. For instance, teenage drivers have the higher tendency to ignore the wearing of seat belts than older drivers.

Safety experts say parents should do more than just enroll their teenagers in formal driver education or go through a spin or two with them. Parents must spend hours training their teenagers and monitoring their driving patterns and behavior even after their licensing.

The monitoring process should include nighttime driving and restrictions on teenage passengers, conditions where statistics indicate that the probabilities are very high for teenage crashes.

Teenage driving is particularly problematic in the United States, because young people start so early at 16 years old, and even younger at 14 or 15 in a number of states. The drivers in most developed nations start driving on the streets at an older age; most Europeans obtain licenses only at 18 years.

All of the fifty states have implemented graduated driver licensing programs of varying formats. Generally, these have helped a lot to reduce teenage driver fatalities during the brief period just after they receive their licenses. But some programs are weaker than others.

Safety experts thus urge parents to set up their own program. The National Safety Council actually recommends up to 100 hours, or up to 12 months of supervised driving under various conditions, including night driving, driving on various road types or in different weather conditions.

A road safety consultant said that strong laws on graduated drivers licensing are inadequate because police cannot enforce the law easily. It is up to parents to monitor their children’s driving, not just during the permit period but long after that as well.

Like sports skills, good driving skills develop over time. Knowing the driving rules and the basic skills are not enough. Parents should train their teenagers in improving perception and judgment.