Teenagers Skip to content Vehicle ratings News Research areas About Home Research areas Teenagers Home Research areas Teenagers Teenagers Overview By the numbers Immaturity and inexperience Graduated licensing Role of parents Vehicle choice Driver education Alcohol Overview The information on this page was compiled Rebecca Weast, a senior research scientist at IIHS. Rebecca has authored numerous studies on teen driver safety. Contact Rebecca. Teen drivers have crash rates over 4 times those of drivers 20 and older per mile driven. Immaturity leads to speeding and other risky habits, and inexperience means teen drivers often don’t recognize or know how to respond to hazards. Graduated licensing reduces teens’ driving risk. Graduated licensing allows teens to practice driving with supervision before getting their license and restricts driving after they are licensed. Today all states have at least some elements of graduated licensing. The current best practices are a minimum intermediate license age of 17, a minimum permit age of 16, at least 70 required hours of supervised practice driving, and, during the intermediate stage, a night driving restriction starting at 8 p.m. and a ban on all teen passengers. Alcohol is a factor in many teen crashes. Although young drivers are less likely than adults to drink and drive, their crash risk is higher when they do. The combination of drinking and driving is made worse by teenagers’ relative inexperience both with drinking and with driving. By the numbers In 2024, 2,899 teenagers (ages 13-19) died in the United States from crash injuries. Such injuries are one of the leading causes of death in this age group. Teenagers’ rates of crashes and crash deaths are disproportionately high compared to those of older age groups. The fatal crash rate per mile driven for 16-19 year-olds is about 3 times the rate for drivers 20 and older. Information on miles driven comes from the 2022 National Household Travel Survey. Based on police-reported crashes of all severities, the crash rate for 16-19 year-olds is over 4 times the rate for drivers 20 and older. Passenger vehicle crash rates per mile traveled, by driver age, 2022 Crash risk among teenage drivers is particularly high during the first months of licensure (Gershon et al., 2018; Senserrick et al., 2021). More teen fatality statistics Immaturity and inexperience Both age and experience have strong effects on teenage drivers’ crash risk (Curry et al., 2015). Young drivers tend to overestimate their own driving abilities and, at the same time, underestimate the dangers on the road. Young drivers’ immaturity is apparent in risky driving practices such as speeding. At the same time, teenagers’ lack of experience behind the wheel makes it difficult for them to recognize and respond to hazards. Characteristics of teens’ crashes include: Driver error. Compared with adults’ crashes, those of teens more often involve driver error (Durbin et al., 2014). Speeding. Excessive speed is a factor in almost a third of teen drivers’ fatal crash involvements. Single-vehicle crashes. Many fatal crashes involving teen drivers include only the teen’s vehicle. Typically, these are high-speed crashes in which the teen driver loses control. Passengers. Studies have shown that the presence of passengers increases crash risk among teenage drivers but decreases crash risk among drivers ages 30 and older (Villavicencio et al., 2019; Williams et al., 2007). Night driving. Thirty-five percent of teen driving fatalities in 2024 occurred between the hours of 9 p.m. and 3 a.m., with over half (53%) occurring between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m. Graduated licensing Graduated driver licensing (GDL) is designed to provide beginning drivers with an opportunity to gain experience behind the wheel under conditions that minimize risk. It was introduced in New Zealand in 1987. Florida was the first U.S. state to adopt graduated licensing in 1996. Today all U.S. states and the District of Columbia have graduated licensing, although the systems vary in strength. In most U.S. jurisdictions, the policies apply only to license applicants younger than 18. There are three stages in a graduated system: a supervised learner’s period; an intermediate license, which is granted after a young driver passes a road test and which limits driving in high-risk situations (e.g., at nighttime or with teen passengers); and a license with full privileges. All states allow at least some exceptions so that novices may drive for specified purposes during restricted hours. Evaluations of graduated licensing systems in U.S. states, Canadian provinces and Australia have shown they reduce crashes substantially (Williams, 2017; Senserrick et al., 2021). A pair of national studies by the Institute and HLDI found that strong restrictions on nighttime driving and teenage passengers, as well as delayed licensing age, reduce fatal crashes and insurance losses for teenage drivers (McCartt et al., 2010;  Trempel, 2009). In addition, the studies found that delaying permit age reduces fatal crashes and that increasing practice hours reduces insurance losses. Other research also has found the length of the learner’s permit holding period to be important (Masten et al., 2013). The current best practices in the United States are a minimum permit age of 16 and at least 70 supervised practice hours, a minimum intermediate license age of 17, and, during the intermediate stage, a night driving restriction starting at 8 p.m. and a ban on all teen passengers. See the information from these three maps in more detail (table) Between 1996, when the first three-stage graduated driver licensing program was implemented in the United States, and 2024, teenage crash deaths declined by 50% (from 5,819 to 2,899). Passenger vehicle driver involvements in fatal crashes per 100,000 people, by driver age, 1996-2024 Past studies have shown conflicting results regarding the effects of GDL programs on older teen drivers, who have aged out of the restrictions, but the most recent work confirms earlier findings that GDL policies do not increase crash rates for older teens (Masten et al., 2011; McCartt et al., 2010; Trempel, 2009; Foss et al., 2014; Thompson et al., 2016). New Jersey is the only U.S. state that doesn’t license until age 17. This policy eliminates most crashes involving drivers who are 16, and studies confirm that the combined crash rate of 16- and 17-year-olds in New Jersey is far lower than in neighboring states with younger licensing ages (Ferguson et al., 1996;  Williams et al., 1983). New Jersey’s graduated licensing system also reduces crashes among 18-year-olds, a group largely unaffected by the graduated systems in effect in other states (Williams et al., 2010). New Jersey also applies full GDL policies to all new drivers under age 21, and recent studies support the benefit of extending graduated licensing to 18-20-year-old new drivers (Curry et al., 2017; Curry et al., 2018). Raising the minimum licensing age is one of the more important steps states can take to reduce teen fatalities. Even after controlling for the effects of other components of graduated licensing, teenagers in states with older licensing ages have lower fatal crash rates and fewer insurance collision claims. Raising the licensing age from 16 to 17, for example, is associated with a 13% lower fatal crash rate among 15-17 year-olds (McCartt et al., 2010) and a 9% reduction in collision claim rates among 16-year-old licensed drivers (Trempel, 2009). GDL calculator Our online tool shows how individual states can improve their GDL laws. Role of parents Even in states that lack strong laws for teen drivers, parents can enforce rules along the same principles as a model GDL law: They can require practice driving and supervise it and, once their teen is licensed, restrict passengers and night driving. Supervised practice driving is an opportunity for a parent or guardian to track their teen’s developing driving skills. Research suggests that the quality of practice driving is even more important than the quantity, with teens benefiting from exposure to diverse driving situations while still under supervision (Mirman et. al., 2014). This process can be especially challenging for parents, who take on much of the teaching burden by supervising their teen’s practice driving (Ehsani et. al., 2019). IIHS developed a web-based tool to help parents track their new teen driver’s developing skills through supervised practice driving. Driving skills checklist For parents of permit holders and new drivers In-vehicle monitoring devices have the potential to help engage parents more fully in supervising their children’s driving and to keep young drivers safer when their parents are not in the vehicle. The devices monitor driving and can give feedback to teenagers or their parents. An IIHS study of the effects of an in-vehicle monitoring system on teenagers’ driving behaviors found that seat belt use improved when violations were reported to parents, and improved even more when in-vehicle alerts were activated (Farmer et al., 2010). Consistent reductions in speeding were achieved only when teenagers received alerts, believed their speeding behavior would not be reported to parents if corrected, and when parents were being notified of such behavior. Other randomized control studies have found similar results. One study reported that immediate visual feedback to teenagers on their risky driving behavior, coupled with feedback to parents, reduced risky driving (Simons-Morton et al., 2013). However, the feedback to teenagers alone did not. Vehicle choice IIHS research has shown that teenagers often don’t drive the safest vehicles. When teenagers begin driving, most drive vehicles their families already own. This was the case for more than half of the teenagers whose parents were surveyed by the Institute in 2014. In comparison, 43% were driving vehicles purchased when the teens began driving or afterward (Eichelberger et al., 2015). A large majority of purchased vehicles were used (83%), and the median cost of purchased vehicles was $5,300. The survey also found that many teenagers were driving older vehicles, which are less likely than newer models to be equipped with key safety features, or minicars or small cars, which provide less protection in a crash than larger vehicles.   Other IIHS studies showed that teenagers killed in crashes were more likely than middle-aged drivers to have been driving small vehicles and older vehicles, and this trend has persisted for at least the past decade (McCartt & Teoh, 2015; Weast & Monfort, 2021). A recent study of drivers of all ages found that both older and younger drivers were more likely than middle-aged drivers to drive older vehicles without electronic stability control (ESC) or side airbags, and this effect was exacerbated by socioeconomic status. Across all age groups, those in the lowest income bracket drove vehicles almost twice the age as those driven by individuals in the highest income bracket (Metzger et al., 2020) Although teenagers are at greater risk of crashing than adults regardless of the vehicle they drive, an analysis of insurance collision claim rates showed this risk is exacerbated when teenagers drive sports cars or small vehicles (HLDI, 2014). Teenagers should drive vehicles that reduce their chance of crashing in the first place and then protect them from injury in case they do crash. To help parents choose safer vehicles, IIHS and Consumer Reports have compiled a list of recommended affordable vehicles for teenagers based on several guiding principles: Young drivers should stay away from high-horsepower models, which could encourage them to speed. Vehicles shouldn’t be too small or too big. Micro and minicars don’t provide enough protection in crashes. Large SUVs and large pickups are excluded because they can be ha…