COLORADO, USA — More than 16,000 teenagers, between the ages of 15-19, have been involved in car crashes across the state so far this year, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). That's around 57 teens each day.
CDOT said deaths among teen drivers are up 53% compared to last year. So far this year, 61 teen drivers have died on roadways across the state.
Traffic safety manager for CDOT, Sam Cole, said the first year of driving is the most dangerous.
“Why are we seeing so many of these crashes involving teens? It’s because teens are inexperienced," Cole said. "They also have an inability to assess risk as adults do on our roadways, so they’re more vulnerable to those crashes."
This week is National Teen Driving Safety Week and CDOT is asking parents to get involved by reminding their teens of some crucial safety rules for new drivers.
These special rules apply to teen drivers only. Those include passenger restrictions, zero tolerance for any cell phone use and mandatory use of seatbelts.
For the first six months, new drivers can't have any friends drive with them. After six months, one friend can be in the passenger seat.
"Some of the main causes of these crashes are just reckless driving," Cole said. "Teens are speeding. They might be driving impaired. They might not be buckling up. They're on their phones. All those things together are driving up the rate of teen crashes."
Nationally, over the last 20 years, Cole said traffic deaths among teens have gone down a lot. The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) recently released a report showing young driver deadly crashes have fallen 38% since 2002.
Recently, in Colorado, traffic deaths are up across all age groups, according to Cole.
"Last year was a record year for traffic deaths in the state so we’re seeing reckless driving behaviors," Cole said. "The fact that teen driving deaths are up by 50%, that’s huge. We haven’t seen that kind of increase across other sectors. So, something is going on with teen drivers. We all need to be paying attention."
CDOT said it is important that parents and guardians set a good example on the roads for their kids by also driving safely.
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