Many of the statistics that government and non-profit agencies provide about safe driving in general and teen driving in particular confirm things we highly suspect or seem to know intuitively, and so it is with alarming new data issued last week at the launch of the Decade of Action for Road Safety: Twice as many teens die on the roads during the summer months as during the rest of the year.
The traffic safety agencies reviewed fatality reports for the past several years and found these sobering statistics:
- From May through August, fatalities in crashes involving teen drivers average nearly 16 per day, as compared to just under nine per day during the other eight months;
- Six of the top seven deadliest days of the year occur in May through August; and
- On the single deadliest day of the year, May 23, the average number of deaths, 25, is three times the level of the least deadly (we can’t say “safest”) day, which is just above eight.
So, parents, it is now May 17. The four deadliest months of the year lie ahead.
Figuring out why there are more fatalities in the summer months is not difficult. It is as simple as the difference between purposeful and recreational driving, as pointed out in my October 8, 2009 post. When teens have a destination, a route, a timetable, and a consequence for not arriving on time, they are far more likely to arrive safely than when they are “joyriding,” that is, driving for fun. Guess what type of driving increases substantially during the summer months? Finally, May 23 is the plainly the most dangerous day of the year because it is smack in the middle of prom and graduation season.
To belabor the obvious, the steps described on this blog that parents need to take to supervise their teen drivers are most important in the summer months.
