Teen driving crash rate down
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TRI-CITIES, Wash. - It's a rite of passage. Turning 16 and getting a driver's license.
Driving to school and getting around town.
Alex Webb has only been driving legally for eight months. The high school senior can't wait for his intermediate license to become, what he calls, real.
"Yeah, I'm still under restrictions. I don't think that's really fair," he said.
But, what's unfair to him has saved more than 17 lives a year over the last decade in Washington.
Rules adopted in 2001 keep young drivers from having any passengers except family for the first six months with a license.
They can only have up to three under the age of 20 for the next six months. They can't drive between 1 a-m and 5 a-m unless someone 25 or older is with them. No cell phones have been allowed since 2007.
Studies on teenage driving habits before the license restrictions went into effect show they had the highest at fault crash rate and that was just within the first year they were driving. So what, if anything has changed over these years?
Crash rates for teens in Franklin and Benton counties dropped by 52 percent. The year before the law changed, there were 509 accidents caused by teen drivers. That dropped to 306 last year. So far this year, 268.
Advocates say the restrictions prove they're working. Even if some teenagers don't obey things like the three-rider limit.
Alex, said, " It's kinda just fit people in because we don't want to make the trip back and forth. We call them a trunk monkey. So, we just put them in the trunk and then go."
The consequences are losing the license until turning 18 or worse.
He continues, "People are going to do it anyways, make the same decisions, because that's just, you know, how teenagers are."
KEPR also found the number of fatalities involving teen drivers dropped by 57 percent over the past 10 years. This is more than twice the amount of traffic deaths caused by all other ages combined at 26 percent.
Driving to school and getting around town.
Alex Webb has only been driving legally for eight months. The high school senior can't wait for his intermediate license to become, what he calls, real.
"Yeah, I'm still under restrictions. I don't think that's really fair," he said.
But, what's unfair to him has saved more than 17 lives a year over the last decade in Washington.
Rules adopted in 2001 keep young drivers from having any passengers except family for the first six months with a license.
They can only have up to three under the age of 20 for the next six months. They can't drive between 1 a-m and 5 a-m unless someone 25 or older is with them. No cell phones have been allowed since 2007.
Studies on teenage driving habits before the license restrictions went into effect show they had the highest at fault crash rate and that was just within the first year they were driving. So what, if anything has changed over these years?
Crash rates for teens in Franklin and Benton counties dropped by 52 percent. The year before the law changed, there were 509 accidents caused by teen drivers. That dropped to 306 last year. So far this year, 268.
Advocates say the restrictions prove they're working. Even if some teenagers don't obey things like the three-rider limit.
Alex, said, " It's kinda just fit people in because we don't want to make the trip back and forth. We call them a trunk monkey. So, we just put them in the trunk and then go."
The consequences are losing the license until turning 18 or worse.
He continues, "People are going to do it anyways, make the same decisions, because that's just, you know, how teenagers are."
KEPR also found the number of fatalities involving teen drivers dropped by 57 percent over the past 10 years. This is more than twice the amount of traffic deaths caused by all other ages combined at 26 percent.
