Weekend Nights And After School Hours Are When Teens Get Involved In Car Crashes

Parents are very worried about their teenagers during weekend nights. However, statistics from the American Automobile Association (AAA) say that the number of teenagers getting involved in car crashes is also high during after school hours. In fact, the organization does even say that compared with weekend nights, the number for after school hours crashes are more or less the same.

Robert L. Darbelnet, the president and CEO of AAA does say that, “Parents are right to be worried about their novice teen drivers being on the road during the high risk evening and late night hours when most state licensing programs correctly limit teen driving. But parents also need to be engaged in their teens’ driving activities during the after school hours when so many teens are on the road and, tragically, many are involved in deadly crashes.” He does even further explain, “Many after school teen trips – driving to part time jobs and home from sports and other activities – are appropriate as teen drivers gain experience. Yet during these unstructured hours between the end of school and when parents get home from work, many teens do dangerous things behind the wheel in cars loaded with passengers.”

Worrying is one thing that parents are in the habit of. Despite loading their vehicles with the top notch Daihatsu body parts to add to the security and safety of their cars and vehicles, most car crashes are actually due to the kind of behavior drivers have behind the wheel.

Crash data from the automobile organization also do say that between the hours 3pm and 5pm, there are as much sixteen year olds and seventeen year olds who are involved in crashes that are quite fatal. In fact, in specific numbers, for the year 2002 up until 2005, there were about 1,100 crashes during after school hours and some 1,237 for weekend night crashes.

The very reason for such a high number is that such hours are when there is quite a huge amount of traffic on the roads and streets. Not only are the teenagers on the roads, but there is also a huge amount of commuters and other people making their trips before heading out for home.

Tracy is a 29 year old researcher and writer from Dallas, Texas with extensive experience in writing auto-related articles and covering automotive related events. She is currently a contributing writer for a leading automotive e-zine.