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“Went
into a tree at about 50 miles per hour,” says 19-year-old
Dan Ruede, describing how the friend he was driving with last February
lost control and went off the road.
Now, two months after the accident, Dan’s face is still
streaked with scars from the shattered windshield.
“He’s scarred. That’s never going to go away,” says
Dan’s father Robert, “His eye need more surgery. His
eyelashes are growing into his eye.”
The factors that likely contributed to Dan’s crash are
all too common.
One… it happened at night, when nearly two thirds of accidents
involving 16 t0 19 year olds occur.
“What you have to recognize is that it’s more difficult
to drive at night and that parents and teenagers need to practice
nighttime driving,” says Len Pagano with the Safe America
Foundation, “…not just assume that you know, once
they have a license they should be able to drive 24-7.”
Two, Dan was with a friend, and adding one teenager in a car
doubles the chance of a serious accident.
“You better have a pretty good idea of whether or not they
can handle the distraction of having other passengers. And if they’re
not up to it… then you shouldn’t allow them to travel
with other teens,” says Pagano.
Three, Dan and his friend were driving on a narrow, tree-lined
street…. where the margin for error is small.
“Parents need to be thinking about identifying where they
know there are hazards on those roads and try to work with the
teen to say, you know it wouldn’t take a whole lot for you
to end up in a tree,” says Pagano.
He says when a driver is inexperienced, parents should map out
safe routes. And… drive with your child on every
kind of road and condition before ever letting them handle it on
their own.
“At the end of the day most kids recognize they do have
a lack of knowledge,” he says.
But , Dan adds… an excess of confidence, “until
the crash actually happened it was never… I kind of seemed
invincible.” |
