In the US, the biggest cause of teenage deaths is road traffic accidents, which means that a high amount of young people are dying on the roads. With so many teenagers dying on the roads each year and causing a high number of serious crashes, you have to wonder whether teenage drivers are the biggest risk on the roads.
Statistics show that in 2014, over 2000 teenagers aged 16 to 19 died on the roads in the US, with a further 200,000 treated for serious injuries caused by car accidents. Those statistics equate to six teenagers dying every day in the US due to car accidents. That’s a scary statistic, isn’t it?
What’s even scarier is the fact that studies show that teenage drivers aged between 16 and 19 are almost three times as likely to have a fatal car accident than drivers over 20. With that significant statistic in mind, it’s easy to think that young drivers are the biggest risk on the roads, which is why a lot of insurers place premiums for young people at a high rate.
That being said, just because some insurance rates are high, there are companies that offer lower priced premiums for teenagers. For the cheapest car insurance for young drivers it’s a case of shopping around, but even then, the premiums offered to teens are much higher than those offered to older and more experienced drivers, and that is simply because of the risk factors that teen drivers come with. The fact is that young drivers are new to the roads and are still learning, which means that they are less experienced when it comes to controlling their vehicles and making safe choices when on the roads.
However, that doesn’t mean that all young drivers are the biggest risk factor on the roads. You see, drink drivers could be an even bigger risk than young drivers.
Statistics show that every day in the US, 27 people die as a result of drink driving, that’s a much higher amount of deaths than the six deaths each day caused by teenage drivers. Every two minutes, one person is injured as a result of drink driving – that’s a terrifying statistic. Then there’s the fact that two out of three people will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at one point in their lives.
Young drivers might not have the same level of experience as older drivers, nor may they be as skilled behind the wheel, but they are not the biggest risk to the roads. The statistics mentioned above show that drink drivers are, as these are the people that cause the more road traffic accidents, injuries, and deaths.
Think of it this way, teenage drivers cause six deaths a day. Whereas drink driving causes 27 deaths per day, that’s more than four times the amount of deaths per day that young drivers cause.
The fact is that teenager drives are not always the safest drivers, hence why their insurance tends to be high in price. However, they are far from the most dangerous drivers on the roads – the most dangerous drivers are drunk drivers.
