When summer hits Georgia, more teenage drivers make their way to state roadways, and this creates new dangers for everyone sharing the roads with them. Teen drivers are more prone to many dangerous driving behaviors than older motorists, and the number of fatal and nonfatal crashes involving drivers within this age group also rises sharply during the summertime. While a lack of driving experience makes teenage drivers dangerous to drive alongside, teens are also prone to distraction, and other teenagers in the car are a notable source of distraction for this age group.
AAA Newsroom reports that teen passengers are a major source of distraction for teen drivers and that a teen’s presence in a car driven by a teen heightens the risk of a fatality if the car driven by the teen is to crash.
How teen passengers raise crash risks
When a teen crashes a car and has a teen passenger there at the time of the incident, the chance of everyone involved in the wreck dying increases by 51%. Those in vehicles not driven by the teen with the teen passenger are even more likely to die because of the teen passenger riding in the teen driver’s vehicle. Drivers and passengers in other cars become 56% more likely to die because of the teenage passenger being there.
What parents might do to enhance safety
Some parents are setting limits when it comes to their teenagers driving and restricting them from driving with other teens in their vehicles until they have an adequate amount of experience. Some also restrict their teens from driving at night or driving in bad weather to further reduce risks.
It is worth noting that when teenage drivers have passengers over 35 riding alongside them and get into crashes, the chances of those crashes proving fatal decrease because of the older passenger’s presence.