IIHS: Small Cars Remain, by Far, the Deadliest Ride for Teens

The other week we brought you a list of best used car buys for teen drivers. Driver safety factored heavily into the choices compiled by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Consumer Reports, with the cheapest offerings obviously being car-like in nature.

With their lower prices, cars remains the ride of choice among teens, despite the new vehicle market shifting violently away from traditional three-box conveyances. They’re also the type of vehicle teens are most likely to turn up dead in, and the trend shows little change, despite the rapidly evolving auto landscape.

A study of fatally injured U.S. drivers over a five-year span (2013-2017) reveals little variation in the trends previously identified by the IIHS in the 2008-2012 time frame. Over that latest half decade, “teens” (identified as 15- to 17-year-olds) involved in fatal collisions were overwhelmingly likely to be driving a car.

Some 63 percent of teen drivers killed were behind the wheel of a car, down only slightly from 64.2 percent for the 2008-2012 period. Of that group, 28 percent were driving a compact or subcompact car, with 24.9 percent behind the wheel of a midsize.

In comparison, drivers aged 35 to 50 killed during that time frame were in cars just 50.2 percent of the time.

Size matters when it comes to vehicle safety, but so does technology. And the fact that teens are more likely to be in an older small vehicle exacerbates the risk, skewing the stats towards cars. Some 38 percent of teen drivers killed in 2013-2017 were in a vehicle between 11 and 15 years of age, versus 31.6 percent for adult drivers. Only 3.7 percent of teen drivers killed over that period were in a vehicle ages three years or less. Ford adults, the figure was 8.6 percent.

The advent of side curtain airbags and electronic stability control has made driving safer, but when pennies are short, older models lacking such features can appear in driveways. Hence the reason for the IIHS’ “safe teen car” list the other week.

“Teenage drivers killed in crashes in 2013–2017 were driving even older vehicles than teenage drivers killed in 2008–2012. Even so, adult drivers were also driving older vehicles in 2013 2017 than they were in the 2008–2012 interval,” the IIHS study noted.

“While this shift to older vehicles has had a bigger impact on teen drivers, it could be the result of broader market trends towards vehicles remaining on the roads longer. However, a 5-year-old vehicle in 2017 likely was more advanced than a 5-year-old vehicle in 2012, with improvements in crashworthiness and safety technology.”

What about trucks and SUVs, you ask? As those bodystyles proliferate, they’re starting to make up a larger share of teen fatality stats, but not by much. From the first study to the latest, IIHS notes the percentage of teen drivers dying in a pickup rising just one point (17.1 percent to 18.1 percent). For adults, that figure dropped from 25.7 percent to 24.4 percent.

SUVs-as-death-chariots rose for both age groups. For 2013-2017, some 17.2 percent of teen victims met their end in an SUV, while 22.9 percent of adult victims could say the same — a rise of just four-tenths of a percentage point for teens and 1.4 percent for adults.

As for minivans, their presence in this list, much like their presence in America’s parking lots, is both insignificant and decreasing. Just 1.7 percent of fatally injured teens were piloting a minivan (down from 1.9 percent). Adults were more likely, comparatively, to be killed in one (3.6 percent, down 1 percent from 2008-2012).

While the IIHS applauds the introduction of graduated licensing laws in the U.S., it takes issue with the lack of progress, citing a need to go futher. States have not imposed the strongest available provisions, its states, “and efforts to pass new GDL legislation have essentially stopped in the past 5 years.”

As well, public health messaging directed at teen drivers seems to have had a minimal impact. There’s still a lot of work to be done to reduce teen driver fatalities, and the make and model and age of the car itself can’t be the one doing all the work.

[Image: General Motors]