Teenage Speeding In 2012, June and July showed to have had the highest number of teenage crash deaths out of any of the other months. The feeling of independence from getting a driver’s license as well as the freeing feeling from school adds to the excitement and complacency of driving for young teenage drivers during the summer. Speeding is not seasonal, although, it happens at any time of the year with the simple slip of thoughts. Teenagers are well known for a short attention span, and behind the wheel is no exception. Many other thoughts may slice through their concentration while on the road, such as their daily schedule and any changes to it, among other things. A sense of feeling rushed or overwhelmed by the day ahead may also be an …show more content…
More than one third of driver fatalities involve speeding as shown by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of the young male drivers between the ages of fifteen and twenty years old who were involved in car accidents in 2012, thirty seven percent were speeding. In 2011, speeding was present in fifty two percent of fatal car accidents with a teenager behind the wheel, which is almost the same percentage as in 2008 showing that the issue of speeding has not been improving. In addition, of the crashes due to error by young drivers twenty one percent of serious accidents were due to driving faster than what was safe for the road conditions. The biggest risk that is easily forgotten is that speeding increases the stopping distance required to prevent an accident. At the ages between sixteen and nineteen thirty eight percent of males and twenty four percent of female teenagers are involved in crashes resulting from high speeds. A total of two thousand eight hundred and twenty three teenagers ages thirteen through nineteen were killed in car crashes in 2012, this is sixty eight percent less than in 1975 and seven percent less than 2011. Though the numbers have decreased, they are still there; furthermore they are not just numbers as is easily forgotten, these numbers represent more than a statistic, they represent a life. To further drive the point that beyond the numbers are lives, here are a couple stories about the life of someone killed in a car accident due to excessive
After the incident, I began doing some research on teenage car accidents at the advice of the officer who had responded to the scene. What I read about and learned was frightening. In 2008 over three thousand teen deaths occurred, either as a passenger or driver in a ...
Statistics show 16- to 17-year-old driver death rates increase with each additional passenger, which is due to distracted driving. Taking your eyes off the road for 2 (two) seconds, at 60 mph, means you have driven blindly for half the length of a football field. The risk of fatality is 3.6 times higher, when they are driving with passengers than when alone. For many years, the correlation between driving behavior and age has interested highway safety researchers and administrators. It is general knowledge that the greatest risk of motor vehicle crash...
Motor vehicles accidents are the leading cause of deaths for teenagers in the United States. According to Vivian Hamilton, “Car crashes kill more teens each year than any other cause” (1). In 2010, seven teenagers from ages 16 to 19 died every day from motor vehicle crashes. In 2011, approximately 1972 young drivers, ages 15 to 20, were killed in motor vehicle crashes (Facts About Teen Drivers”). The age of which a person can drive legally varies from country to county. In the United State, individuals are allow to take a driving test before their legal voting age which is eighteen or legal ...
Speeding is the third most common factor in vehicle accidents in the US, costing 13,000 lives a year. Some of the reasons behind speeding include: driver's being in a rush, the need for adrenaline, and their belief that they won't get caught, or that laws don't apply to them. Speeding not only shortens your reaction time, but also your control of the vehicle as the faster the vehicle goes the more any sudden movements can affect it causing to flip or slide into another car, which may cause a fatality, maybe not to yourself but to
One of the most important reasons why there are a large number of crashes involving teens is due to their inexperience in driving. According to an article titled “Why are Young Drivers at a Greater Risk”, driver education classes provide only a miniscule amount of the information needed to become a good responsible driver. A study found that there was a decrease in crash rates among teens that got an average of a hundred and ten hours of supervised driving. This proves that teens not only need driver education classes but more on the road driving experience (Why). The article labeled “Teen Driving” discussed that the less experience any person has in driving the more likely they are to make an error in judgment. In 1998, eighty percent of fatal accidents involving sixteen year olds were a direct result of driver error. In the same year more than sixty percent of people who were twenty to forty-nine year olds were guilty of driver error (Teen Driving). The lack of a teen driver’s experience in driving when first licensed is not enough for a teen when forced in...
Wilson, Kevin. “Back to School: Teenage Driving.” AutoWeek. 4 Sept. 2006: 18-20. Web. 28 Apr. 2010.
There are people who would say that teens are more reckless than the elderly. Although it is widely known that teens are often involved in dangerous driving activities such as racing, reckless driving, packing a car past its normal ca...
“Car accidents are the No. 1 cause of death of teens” says Cricket Fuller, he also says that “a quarter of all teen-driving crashes are attributed to distract driving”. Even though the death rate of teen drivers is going down, an average of seven deaths a day still occur (Kowalski). Debacco-Ernie had said that “any time a teen driver is out on the road after 10 p.m., the probability of them being involved in a crash increases dramatically” (Carr).
Teenagers don’t want to be inconvenient with having to wait to respond to their friends about the latest party or school event that’s coming up. Driving is just as good of time as any to text their best friends about the upcoming weekend or update their Facebook status in the mind of a young adult. Even though most teens know they shouldn’t text and drive many are guilty of doing it several times a day. An overwhelming 75% of teens even admit to text messaging while driving (“Distracted Driving,” 2016). Young drivers are more likely to get into an accident due to lack of experience than that of any other driver on the road. Add in texting to the mix it is a recipe for disaster. About 54% of teenage motor vehicle crash deaths occur on Friday, Saturday or Sunday – with Saturday being the deadliest day of the week for teens (Hosansky, 2012). Teenage motor vehicle fatalities are at the highest in the summer months.
According to federal driving license laws in the United States, the current legal minimum driving age to obtain a restricted driver’s license varies from state from fourteen years, three months in South Dakota to as high as seventeen in New Jersey. Many high school teens by this time are out and about in their vehicles, adjusting and learning the rituals of the road. But, it is also a time when many teens are at higher risk of danger due to many activities teens are bound to do at their age. From drinking under the influence, drug intakes that can affect mental and physical stability and result in mental performance, to the focus level when it comes to the cell phone usage while driving a two ton death machine. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens. The risk of motor vehicle crashes is higher among teens aged sixteen to nineteen than among any other age group. It is why insist that the legal driving should be increased at eighteen to twenty-one.
Although studies by Dr.Masten and his colleagues show, “75 percent of the fatal crashes we thought we were saving actually just occurred two years later,” (paragraph 4). This was stated when the minimum driving age was sixteen and this effected the number if fatal crashes in eighteen-year olds. Dr. Masten suspects that teenagers are waiting to get their license and skipping the restrictions, (paragraph 7).
It has been shown that raising the driving age to 18 can increase the fatal crash rate among 18-year-olds. In Anahad O'Connor's informational article, "Teenage Driving Laws May Just Delay Deadly Crashes", one consequence of raising driving age is shown; "The study, published Wednesday in The Journal of the American
Whether or not teenagers should be allowed to get their driver 's license at age sixteen is a known topic across the United States. One of the causes for this argument is the number of fatalities caused by young drivers. Evidence shows, “In 2012, 1,875 drivers between the ages of 15 and 20 died in motor vehicle crashes and an additional 184,000 young drivers were injured, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,” (“Teen Drivers”). Most accidents are caused by young drivers. In the United States of America, citizens may receive their driver’s license at sixteen, if they meet the requirements. Some people argue that sixteen year olds should not be able to receive their driver’s license. Other people argue that sixteen
“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers” -Dave Barry, comedian. The number of accidents over the last ten years have drastically increased, drivers are paying less attention to the road itself. Many individuals behind the wheel of a car believe that their driving does not affect the road conditions, however it always will. The driving habits of today are catastrophic due to the reasoning that the driving will affect other lives through reckless or distracted driving, and disobeying traffic laws.
In the late 1900’s a massive trend took over America. Smoking became a huge hit especially among teenagers. It was cool, and those that smoked sat at the top of the social ladder in high schools across America. The success of smoking and its popularity among teenagers was due to the public perception about smoking. At the time of its success, the public perception was wildly positive. There were claims that smoking had great effects on individual health and that there were no negative side effects. There is nothing more telling about the American perception of smoking than the movie Grease, where the nice girl becomes queen of the school after a lifestyle change that includes the addition of smoking. However, America has changed. Americans