Fatal and nonfatal crashes involving teen drivers tend to spike in Florida during the summertime, when most teens are out of school and have more time on their hands to be out on the roads. While teenage drivers pose a threat to everyone else on the road due to their lack of experience, many teen motorists also often have other risk factors at play, one of which is other teen passengers.
Per the Florida Department of Transportation, crashes involving teen drivers rise each year during the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Here is a closer look at how teenage passengers impact the driving behaviors of other teen drivers.
Teen drivers with passengers take more risks
Studies show that teenage motorists who have teen passengers in their cars are more prone to taking dangerous risks behind the wheel. In fact, a teen driver is statistically two-and-a-half times more likely to engage in risky behind-the-wheel behaviors when he or she has a teen passenger present as opposed to when driving alone. When a teen motorist has more than one passenger in the car, he or she becomes three times as likely to engage in dangerous driving behaviors. Also, when a teen driver has two or more passengers, their presence raises the odds of a crash by 158%.
Teen drivers with passengers face more distractions
Teen passengers are a significant source of distraction for other motorists. The more passengers a teen has, the more likely he or she is to experience driver distraction because of them.
Parents of teen drivers may want to restrict their kids from driving with other young passengers until they get more experience behind the wheel.