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Vehicle accidents leading cause of teen deaths

Motor vehicle accidents are a leading cause of death for American teenagers, and speeding is involved in nearly half the fatalities, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Young drivers are involved in 14 percent of all fatal crashes, but make up only 6.7 percent of the population.

Most of the youth who died in the year reported were not wearing seat belts – more than 60 percent.

But what can you do to get your young son or daughter to slow down in the car?

“I was constantly telling them to wear their seat belts and slow down,” said Judith Davis. Her son Jacob was involved in a near fatal accident that was the result of speeding.

Most police officers have seen it firsthand. Speed and inexperienced drivers are a deadly mixture, especially on some of the less traveled roads in the county.

St. Francois County Sheriff Dan Bullock pointed out a lot of the more rural roads were never built with speed in mind. They started as wagon trails, evolved to gravel roads, and then got a coating of blacktop.

“The posted limit might be 55 mph,” the sheriff said, “but it might only be safe to drive 30 or 35 mph on them.”

It is the responsibility of the drivier to adjust speed to the driving conditions, and this is something the sheriff stresses even with his own officers.

“It doesn’t do them any good to drive too fast,” Bullock said. “If they don’t get where they are going, they haven’t helped anyone.”

Bullock recommended that parents point out news articles about car crashes to their teenage drivers, and discuss what might have gone wrong.

If that is not enough to bring home the reality that a 4,000 pound vehicle can be dangerous, there are also videos that parents can buy from such places as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, www.nhtsa.dot.gov, or the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, www.highwaysafety.org.

Parents should also encourage their teenagers to leave 10 to 15 minutes earlier than they need to, so there is plenty of time to get where they are going.

Arrange at times to drive in separate vehicles to the same location with your teenager. If their speed is habitually high, it is likely they will forget themselves and the speedometer will begin to creep upwards.

Bullock said many teenagers also do not realize how dangerous it is to play their stereos loudly. If the volume is too high, it is impossible to hear another driver honking the horn or emergency sirens warning a motorist to get out of the way.

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