For understandable reasons, teen driver fatalities get the lion’s share of our attention. Most traffic safety experts and advocates can probably tell you that in recent years, about 33,000 people have died annually on American roads, and that this number has included about 2,000 drivers under age 20 and about 3,000 “others ” – passengers, other drivers, pedestrians, bystanders. Injury statistics — I hesitate to use the term “non-fatal” crashes — get far less attention. For example, Allstate has carried out an “11” campaign, focusing on the average number of teen drivers killed each day. Certainly one reason for this focus on deaths is that injury statistics are probably far less precise, and the word “injury” can cover a wide range of situations, from something requiring a few minutes of medical attention to a life-threatening impact that results in extended hospitalization. Injuries get far less notice.
So perhaps it is worth taking a moment to look at those numbers, at least as a comparison and as orders of magnitude. In round numbers, in the United States in 2009, there were approximately 11 million drivers under age 20 with learner’s permits or licenses. According to research done by the AAA Foundation, 154,000 drivers under 20 were injured, and those crashes hurt 81,000 passengers and 224,000 others (again, drivers of other vehicles, passengers in other vehicles, pedestrians and bystanders). That totals 459,000 injuries. Thus, 11 million drivers were involved in crashes that resulted in about 459,000 injuries (note that this is not to say that the teen driver caused the injuries; these numbers are what researchers call, neutrally, “crash involvements”). 459,000 injuries is an average of 1257 every day of the year.
Again, I understand the reasons for our focus on the death statistics, but maybe we would do well as safety advocates and parents to take more frequent note of the injury numbers. They are huge.
the kids don’t know that if you hit your thumb with a hammer hard enough, you’ll go to the emergency room. Or that the fall off a three story building will have the same results as the pumpkin dropped, landing at 28mph. Or that the mouse in the tincan, thrown against the wall will impact at the same speed as the can. I try to demonstrate the analogous circumstances . . . And the behavioral errors of cause. Without error, there is no need for excuses or sorrow.
Are you familiar with Phil Berardelli or Ronn Langford? Each has gone on to enact preventive efforts after their kid’s tragedy.