Having a teenager who is an inexperienced driver on the road is one of the scariest parts of the parenting experience.
In Massachusetts, the number of fatalities in teen driver crashes is the highest it’s been in 15 years.
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And that increase parallels a growing number of people killed in teen driver crashes nationwide.
AAA Northeast analyzed the state’s teen driving crash data and found that there were 16,709 drivers, 16-19 years old who were involved in crashes in Massachusetts in 2022. That’s equivalent to one teen-involved crash every 32 minutes.
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Forty-nine people were killed in crashes involving teen drivers last year. According to AAA, this is the first time that number has been above 40 in more than a decade.
We spoke to Mark Schieldrop at the AAA Northeast.
“We believe that driver inattention and distraction is increasingly a problem. Despite the messaging. We've heard that texting and driving and using your cell phone while driving is risky. It happens all too often,” said Schieldrop. “All drivers are doing this not just teen drivers, but for teens, it's the leading cause of crashes for teen drivers. 2590 crashes in 2022 were a result of primarily driver inattention or distraction, according to police who investigated those crashes.:
Other contributing circumstances in these teen crashes include failing to yield, following too closely, speeding and failure to stay in the proper lane.
AAA offers the following advice for parents when talking to their teens about safe driving:
Wear your seatbelt: tell teens to make sure they wear their seatbelt—and that their passengers are buckled up as well. More than half of the teen drivers or passengers killed in crashes last year weren’t wearing a seatbelt.
Set limits on other passengers: AAA found that research shows the risk of a fatal crash increases dramatically when teen passengers accompany a teen driver.
And they recommend signing a parent-teen driving agreement: which lays the ground rules for your teen driver that exceed the junior operator restrictions. They restrict time on the road and passengers.
Those rules exist because, according to AAA, data shows that teen drivers are more likely to die in a crash at night. When there are multiple teens in the car, the fatality risk increases exponentially.
AAA also points out social media posts that show people taking videos of themselves driving dangerously or the trends showing people weaving in and out of traffic that can lead to kids trying it for themselves. They are young and impressionable. And the result for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians is oftentimes tragic.
