Teen Drivers Play the Blame Game

A recent report highlighted teen drivers’ critical errors that are often one of the last in a chain of events leading up to a crash. Seventy-five percent of these crashes were due a critical teen driver error, with three common errors— lack of scanning to detect and respond to hazards, going too fast for road conditions and being distracted by something inside or outside the vehicle—accounting for nearly half of all serious crashes.

However, a new study by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) indicates teens won’t admit to being at fault. The study reveals an alarmingly high number of young drivers who have had "near misses" while driving and some insight into what may be chief contributors to those events, despite what the teens think. According to the study, 68% of teens admit to have narrowly avoided a crash—with more than half of those (56%) reporting multiple instances—yet young drivers are more apt to blame external causes such as other drivers or the weather rather than owning up to any personal responsibility in the near-miss.

In the national study of 2,294 high school students, one in three drivers (34%) who say they have had a "near miss" point the finger at another driver, while 21% say the weather was the primary cause. Yet when asked what they were doing in the car at the time of the incident, teens admitted to a rash of distractive or dangerous behaviors:

Speeding: 30%

Texting while driving: 21%

Talking to passengers: 20%

Changing songs on their MP3 player: 17%

Tellingly, only 9% of teens believed excessive speed was the primary contributor, 13% said texting while driving was to blame and 6% said their own passengers distracted them.

Further, teens who admit to have narrowly avoided a crash are far more likely than teens who have never had a near miss to report regularly ("often" or "very often") engaging in dangerous or distracted driving behaviors:

Behavior while Driving Teens with Near Miss (68% of total)

Talking on the cell phone: 36%

Text messaging: 33%

Speeding: 46%

More than 3 passengers: 47%

Changing songs on an MP3 player: 61%

Teens without Near Miss (32% of total)

Talking on the cell phone: 22%

Text messaging: 19%

Speeding: 30%

More than 3 passengers: 33%

Changing songs on an MP3 player: 50%

Despite all this, 92% of teens consider themselves to be safe and cautious drivers.

Close calls will cause teens to change driving behaviors, but it doesn’t last long. In fact, less than half (42%) of the teens who had said they changed behavior after a close call say their renewed commitment to more responsible driving was short-lived (a month or less). It takes actually getting in a crash (reported by 22% of teens) to result in significant changes in driving habits. Nearly 70% of teen drivers who have been in a collision say the experience changed their driving habits, with 59% of them saying those improvements are "forever."