TEENAGED DRIVERS AND FATAL CRASH RESPONSIBILITY. PRELIMINARY REPORT

Teenaged drivers, especially males, have much higher rates of fatal crash involvement than older drivers. Data presented in this paper show the following: (1) Young drivers up to about age 25, especially 16 and 17 year olds, are more often responsible for their fatal crashes and resulting deaths than are older drivers. Young male drivers are more likely than young females to be responsible for their fatal crashes; (2) Teenaged drivers are responsible for more deaths per license holder than drivers of all other ages; they are responsible for about five times as many crash deaths per license holder as drivers aged 35-64; (3) Teenaged male drivers have by far the highest rates of involvement in crash deaths, and deaths for which they are responsible. Per license holder, male teenaged drivers kill more than four times as many people as female teenaged drivers; (4) Male teenaged drivers were involved in 84 percent of the 6,086 1978 passenger vehicle occupant deaths studied for which teenagers were probably responsible. Female teenagers accounted for 16 percent; and (5) Teenaged drivers more often kill other people than themselves. For example, more than half the people killed by teenagers in 1978 were their own passengers, or drivers and passengers in other vehicles, whereas the majority of people killed by drivers aged 21 or older were themselves.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • To be published in revised form in Law and Policy Quarterly.
• Corporate Authors:

  Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

  1005 North Glebe Road
  Arlington, VA  United States  22201
• Authors:
  • Williams, A F
  • Karpf, R S
• Publication Date: 1982-8

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 22 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Adolescents; Age; Crash victims; Drivers; Fatalities; Females; High risk drivers; Males
• Uncontrolled Terms: Driver age
• Old TRIS Terms: Female drivers
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00370686
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Report/Paper Numbers: HS-033 754
• Files: HSL, TRIS, USDOT
• Created Date: Feb 28 1983 12:00AM