Have you ever heard someone say that teen drivers are the most dangerous drivers on the road? Maybe they noted how teens just cannot have much experience — through no fault of their own, of course, but just by virtue of their age — and so they cause more crashes than other age groups.
If that worried you at the time and school was in session, you will not be thrilled to learn that teen car accident statistics always get worse in the summer. Typically, there is a 15% rise in fatal accidents involving teen drivers over the roughly 100 days from when school lets out to when it starts back up again in the fall.
Even for older drivers, this rise in crash rates is worrying. What if one of those teen drivers hits you? You may be a safe and experienced driver, but a flood of young, accident-prove, inexperienced drivers on the road around you could still put you in the hospital.
The issue, of course, is that not all teens have full-time summer jobs that take up as much time as school. Some don’t work at all. Others work part-time jobs. With more free time, teens are simply on the road more as they drive to friends’ houses, go to the beach, head out to parties, go to the movies and do an endless variety of other things that they just do not have time to do during the school year. That’s part of what makes summer so fun at that age, but it’s also what makes it so dangerous.
If you do get injured in a car accident this year, make sure you know what legal options you have to seek compensation.