Only one-third of people killed in fatal crashes involving teen drivers are the drivers themselves, a new report shows.
The other two-thirds of victims are passengers, drivers and occupants of other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
"For every teen driver killed in a crash, almost twice as many other people die, which underscores the link between teen driver safety and the safety of everyone on the road," Robert L. Darbelnet, AAA president and CEO, said in an American Automobile Association news release.
The analysis of U.S. crash data from 1998 to 2007 showed that crashes involving drivers aged 15 to 17 killed 28,138 people. Of those, 10,388 (36.9 percent) were the teen drivers. The other 17,750 (63.1 percent) victims included 8,829 passengers of the teen drivers, 6,858 occupants of other vehicles, and 2,063 non-motorists.
Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/03/27/most-fatalities-in-teen-crashes-are-not-the-drivers.html