Grim Facts

More teenagers die due to motor vehicle accidents than any other single cause. Nothing else is even close.

  • Crashes account for about 40% of deaths of people in this age group.
  • People age 16 to 20 have the highest fatality rate due to MVAs of any other age group.
  • About 6000 teenagers of driving age die in automobile accidents every year.
  • Each year, about 450,000 teenagers are injured in auto accidents.  27,000 require hospitalization.
  • Crashes are the leading cause of disability related to head and spinal cord injuries.
  • Two thirds of the teens who die in auto crashes are male.
  • In 2004, 7700 teenage drivers were in crashes in which someone died.
  • 16-to 19-year olds have a crash rate almost twice that of 20- to 24-year-olds and almost 3 times that of 25- to 29-year-olds and more than 4 times that of 30- to 70-year-olds.
  • The crash rate for 16-year-olds is significantly higher than that even for 17-year-olds!

Source:  The Teen Driver (Committee on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention and Committee on Adolescence).  PEDIATRICS, Vol. 118(6), December 2006.

Here's a chart.  This data is from 2001.  I'll be putting up new data soon, but this pattern will still hold true. It shows the top four causes of death in teenagers:  Automobile accidents (MVA's), homicide, suicide, and cancer.  Look at how auto accidents compare to the next three most common causes of death in teenagers.

 

I made this chart from data published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (iihs.org)

There are a lot of different ways to crunch these numbers.  Just remember the bottom line(s):
1.  If you are a parent, and if you are to suffer that greatest of tragedies--the death of your child--the most likely cause will be a motor vehicle accident.

2.  Your teen driver is also at greater risk to be badly injured and to be responsible for an accident in which others are killed or badly injured.

 

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