If you look at one individual car accident, it may be possible to pick out a single cause. Maybe the driver was texting. Perhaps they were driving too fast for weather conditions. Maybe they ran a red light. There are thousands of potential reasons why an accident could have occurred.
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks accident statistics. They have found that young drivers have a seriously higher fatal accident rate than older drivers. Specifically, the fatality rate is highest for those between 16 and 19 years old.
The actual root cause, in many cases, is that these young drivers are just inexperienced. It is that inexperience that leads to other mistakes, such as driving too fast for weather conditions or believing that it is safe to text and drive.
Can this be fixed?
The problem with this is that it’s not necessarily the teenager’s fault that they don’t have experience. Some people have suggested raising the driving age, perhaps moving it up from 16 to 21. But that wouldn’t necessarily fix the problem because it would just mean that drivers who were 21 years old would be inexperienced.
The only real fix is for drivers to get more experience behind the wheel. They are going to make mistakes while they do this, and they will hopefully learn from those mistakes. But the mistakes can still cause car accidents as these drivers learn and develop their skills. Those who have been injured as a result may need to look into all of their rights to seek financial compensation for medical bills, lost wages and other costs.
