10-24-13 teen driver safety week

Forty eight Wisconsin teenagers died in car crashes last year making it the number one cause of death for young people in the Badger state.  This is Teen Driver Safety Week.  Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Captain Rick Olig says there are several reasons teens continue to have a high rate of deaths and injuries on the road including speeding, not wearing seatbelts and distracted driving. 

But Olig says the bottom line is teen drivers are inexperienced behind the wheel.  The risk of crashing increases when teen drivers have other teens in their car, teen drivers are four times more likelier to crash than older drivers, fatal crash rates for 16 year olds are twice as high at night than daytime, and the newer the teen driver, the higher the risk of crashing.