It was scary. Every time I stood in front of them, something inside me shivered. It was not a lack of confidence on my part; I had stood in front of groups of people as teacher most of my adult life. What scared me was the knowledge that I was helping people to do perhaps the most dangerous thing they would ever do in their lives.
I was teaching teen agers how to drive so they could get their licenses. In the ten years I taught Drivers Education courses in Columbus, Ohio, I helped put an estimated 5,000 teen drivers on the roads of Franklin County. In spite of my efforts to teach them how to drive safely and defensively, I know many of them did not learn from my instruction, but rather chose to learn from their own experience, which all too often involved accidents, some of them causing serious injury or someone's death.
Statistics used in developing the lessons I taught consistently cited three very common factors in teen driver deaths. Several independent studies all placed these three factors as the most common factors found in examining the details of fatal accidents that involved a teen driver.
Drugs and alcohol were factors in a number of the fatal accidents, but neither drugs nor alcohol were in the top three. Not all teens use drugs or drink alcohol. But all teens who drive are at risk of dying in an automobile accident that will very likely include one, if not all, of these three factors.
The third most common factor is the tendency for teen drivers to show off, especially males aged 16 when there is another male of the same age in the car. This showing off causes the teen driver to take irresponsible chances he would likely not take if there were not someone present to be impressed by his assumed skills. Although more common among males, female teen drivers also can be lured by the desire to impress other teens with their skills. The really dangerous thing about this is that it is more common among very young drivers, mostly 16-year-olds, the very drivers who have very little skill because they have just begun to drive.
Distracted driving is the second most common factor in teen fatal accidents. Teens driving in traffic while texting messages, or dialing their cell phones, or changing CDs or tuning the radio all reduce the focus of the driver on the serious task of guiding the car safely through the traffic-filled mazes that are our streets and highways. Lively conversations with passengers also are distracting. Distracted drivers miss important information they need to make correct driving decisions. A changing traffic light, a sign indicating a reduced speed limit, a car ahead slowing down to make a turn, an unsignaled lane change, there is an endless supply of risky situations on the roads that a safe driver is constantly monitoring and a distracted driver is more likely to miss. Distracted driving is also a common risk factor in accidents involving more experienced adult drivers as well.
By far, the most common risk factor in fatal accidents, so common that is a part of nearly 100% of such accidents is excessive speed. In nearly all fatal teen accidents studied, the driver who caused the accident was driving faster than the legal speed limit. What new teen drivers sometimes have difficulty understanding is that the faster the car is traveling, the more difficult it is to maneuver it safely in traffic. Stopping distances are greatly increased as the speed increases. The time available for reacting to situations is greatly reduced as the speed increases. The damages to vehicle and occupants in a crash greatly increase as the speed increases. Speed is also a common factor in adult accidents as well. In fact, in nearly all accidents in which someone dies, no matter what the age or experience of the driver, the driver was traveling in excess of the legal speed at the time of the accident.
In a perfect world, no one would driver faster than the speed limit, or drive while talking on a cell phone or otherwise distracted, or try to impress others with his driving skills. Since we do not live in a perfect world, and since both teen and adult drivers sometimes engage in these risky driving practices, people will continue to die on our nation's roads and highways.
I no longer teach driver ed classes. But it is still scary when I think about teen drivers behind the wheel of a huge metal object capable of maiming and killing. And sometimes the thought of adult drivers driving like teens is even more scary.