You may not be surprised to see that teen drivers have a very high fatal accident rate. They also simply have very high crash rates, and much of this has to do with their inexperience or their willingness to engage in risky driving behaviors, such as speeding or not wearing their seatbelts. Generally speaking, drivers get much safer once they turn 20 years old.
However, if you look at the fatal accident rates for elderly drivers, they are correspondingly high. This doesn’t seem to fit the narrative, as these drivers certainly have experience and they tend to be more cautious. So why do they have high rates of tragic fatalities on the road?
The role that age plays
Their age itself really plays into this, making them more susceptible to fatal injuries. As noted by the Insurance Information Institute, these drivers tend to be injured more easily in accidents, and they are also more likely to “have medical complications and die of those injuries.”
The implication here is that teen drivers often get involved in fatal accidents because they cause those accidents. Elderly drivers also get involved in a high number of fatal accidents, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the ones causing them. It just means that, if someone else hits an elderly driver or causes a crash that impacts their vehicle, that person is substantially more likely to have serious or fatal injuries in the wreck.
Have you lost a loved one in a crash like this, or have you been seriously injured yourself? You need to know all of the legal steps that you can take.
