Teen Drivers: Danger In Numbers

Speeding? Drinking and driving? Dustin Kegley doesn’t bother with any of that, he said. But the 16-year-old wasn’t convinced about others his age on Monday. “They’re more crazy than experienced drivers, I’d say,” said the Lake City High School student, standing by his car in the school parking lot. The big thing Kegley hears about is kids racing, he said, “going super fast.” He figured that’s tied to friends in the backseat, egging on their teenage chauffeurs. “Just to show off and be cool,” he said of why young drivers get careless. Teen drivers might want to have their pals clam up. From 2005-2010, 57 percent of fatal crashes with 16 or 17-year-old drivers involved at least one passenger, according to a study just released by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety/ Alecia Warren , Coeur d’Alene Press. More here. (Jerome A. Pollos’ Press photo: Logan Smith, 16, sits on a car as he talks with his friends after school Monday in the parking lot of Lake City High)

Question: Were you a good teen driver?