Teens likelier to drive older cars that raise fatal crash risk: study
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Getting the old family car is a rite of passage for many teen drivers, but it could increase their odds of being in a fatal accident by nearly a third, a new study in JAMA Network Open found.
Why it matters: Newer vehicles and those with more driver assistance technologies reduce the risk of fatal crashes, but are likelier to belong to middle-aged and older drivers.
What they found: The study from Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus examined fatal crash data from passenger vehicles between 2016 and 2021.
- The researchers compared teen drivers between 15 and 18 years old and middle-aged drivers between 31 and 55. They also looked at vehicle age and the number of assistive technologies installed, including adaptive cruise control, forward collision prevention, lane and side assist and lighting technologies.
- Teens were as much as 31% likelier to be involved in a fatal crash.
- Almost 10,000 out of more than 81,000 drivers involved in fatal crashes were teens. A higher proportion (27.6%) were operating vehicles older than 15 years than middle-aged drivers (22.8%).
- Vehicles on the road six to 15 years were also associated with a 19% increased risk of a crash being fatal compared with newer ones, irrespective of the age of the drivers, researchers found. Vehicles on the road more than 15 years had a 31% increased risk of fatal crash.
Each driver assistance technology was associated with a 6% reduction in the risk of dying in a fatal crash.
Limitations to the study include the fact that many other factors like driver behavior, crash type, vehicle model and year, and road conditions could also contribute to fatalities but weren't examined.
Thought bubble: The findings are consistent with previous research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and other safety groups about the importance of considering newer safety features when helping a teen get their first car, Axios' transportation reporter Joann Muller points out.
Yes, but: Safety technologies drive up the cost of new cars, which could go up even further because of tariffs.
- Most teens who have older vehicles either bought them or were given them for financial reasons. Many families can't afford newer models for their kids.
The bottom line: Pediatricians and health care practitioners should advise parents to prioritize more safety features when choosing a vehicle, wrote Elizabeth Walshe from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in a commentary on the study.
- "The authors highlight that vehicle choice is an actionable risk factor, recommending that teens drive the safest vehicle available (not older family cars)," Walshe said.
Looking for a place to start? Last week, IIHS and Consumer Reports released an annual report on the safest cars for teens that cost less than $10,000.
