More teenagers die due to motor vehicle accidents than any other single cause. Nothing else is even close.

• Crashes account for about 40% of deaths of people in this age group.
• People age 16 to 20 have the highest fatality rate due to MVAs of any other age group.
• Roughly 5500 teenagers of driving age die in automobile accidents every year in the U.S.
• Each year, about 450,000 teenagers are injured (non-fatally) in auto accidents.  27,000 require hospitalization.
• Crashes are the leading cause of disability related to head and spinal cord injuries.
• Two thirds of the teens who die in auto crashes are male.
• In 2004, 7700 teenage drivers were in crashes in which someone died.
• 16-to 19-year olds have a crash rate almost twice that of 20- to 24-year-olds and almost 3 times that of 25- to 29-year-olds and more than 4 times that of 30- to 70-year-olds.
• The crash rate for 16-year-olds is approximately double that of 18-19 year olds who are, in turn, at much greater risk than older drivers.
  

Source:  The Teen Driver (Committee on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention and Committee on Adolescence).  PEDIATRICS, Vol. 118(6), December 2006.

The chart on the right shows the top four causes of death in teenagers:  Automobile accidents (MVA's), homicide, suicide, and other (nonvehicular) accidents.  Look at how auto accidents compare to the next three most common causes of death in teenagers. 

If you are a parent, and if you are to suffer that greatest of family tragedies--the death of your child--the most likely cause will be a motor vehicle accident.

Your teen driver is also at greater risk to be badly injured and to be responsible for an accident in which others are killed or badly injured.

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