As experienced North Carolina accident injury attorneys, my colleagues and I have known for some time that inexperience is the cause of wrecks. The extent to which this is true was recently made apparent in an analysis published by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. The foundation’s review revealed that teen drivers in the Tar Heel State are about 50 percent more likely to crash in their first month of driving than they after a year of driving on their own.
Researchers wrote that three common mistakes — “failure to reduce speed, inattention, and failure to yield — accounted for 57 percent of all crashes in which teens were at least partially responsible during their first month of licensed driving.”
More precisely, the research pinpointed how some kinds of crashes occurred at relatively high rates initially and declined sharply with experience. These included crashes involving left-hand turns.
“We know that young drivers’ crash rates decrease quickly as they gain experience. What our new study tells us is that there are a few specific abilities that we could do a better job of helping teens develop before they begin driving independently,” said AAA Foundation President and CEO Peter Kissinger.
Although many teens learn through their mistakes, too many don’t survive the learning curve. In 2009 we reported the alarming trend in North Carolina of rising teen traffic accidet deaths. Many of those fatalities were linked to speeding. While driving too fast can be dangerous for all drivers, it hasproven particularly lethal for inexperienced teen drivers.
According to survey in early 2011 conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, almost two-thirds of teen driver’s wrecks were not caused by reckless driving but by three key inexperienced driver mistakes: not scanning the road, distracted driving and misjudging driving conditions.
If you are the victim of a crash caused by a teen driver, whether the cause is a mistake or recklessness may not matter much. In a tragic 2008 accident, three teens from Green Run High School in Virginia Beach, VA, were killed when the driver crossed a center line in slippery conditions and hit a van.
The relatives of victims killed by the actions or inactions of an inexperienced teen driver may be entitled to recover damages under a wrongful death lawsuit.
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About the Editors: The Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis & Appleton personal injury law firm, which has offices in Virginia (VA) and North Carolina (NC), edits the injury law blogs Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard and Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard as pro bono services.
Rick Shapiro has practiced personal injury law for over 30 years in Virginia, North Carolina, and throughout the Southeastern United States. He is a Board-Certified Civil Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy (ABA Accredited) and has litigated injury cases throughout the eastern United States, including wrongful death, trucking, faulty products, railroad, and medical negligence claims. During his three-decade career, Shapiro has won client appeals before the VA Supreme Court, VA Court of Appeals, NC Supreme Court, SC Supreme Court, WV Supreme Court, TN Supreme Court, and three times before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, underscoring Shapiro’s trial achievements. In addition, he and his law firm have won settlements/verdicts in excess of $100 million. His success in and out of the courtroom is a big reason why he was named 2019 “Lawyer of the Year” in railroad law in U.S. News & World Report's Best Lawyers publication (Norfolk, VA area), and he has been named a “Best Lawyer” and “Super Lawyer” by those peer-reviewed organizations for multiple years. Rick was also named a “Leader in the Law, Class of 2022” by Virginia Lawyers Weekly (total of 33 statewide honorees consisting of lawyers and judges across Virginia). And in September 2023, Rick was selected as a recipient of the National Board of Trial Advocacy (NBTA) 2023 President’s Award. Although many nominations were submitted from across the country, Rick was just one of eight attorneys chosen by the prestigious National Board which certifies civil trial attorneys across the U.S. Rick was also recently named to Virginia Lawyers Weekly 2024 Virginia’s Go To Lawyers Medical Malpractice. The attorneys awarded this honor are nominated by their colleagues and chosen by a panel from the publication.
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