Real Fears

My 16 year old son was pretty frustrated with us last night. He and his friends planned to go to the Rays game and then head downtown to watch the fireworks. The problem was that they were going to be driven by one of the 16 year olds. Apparently, every one else's parents were ok with that. We were not. After a heated discussion, his friend picked up the other two boys and drove to our house so we could transport all of them to and from the game. I have to admit that there were moments last night when I regretted our rigidity and thought it might just be safe enough to let them do it their way. But, we decided to go ahead and be the designated drivers. It amazes me that other parents are not as concerned as we are about these newbie drivers. We seem to be the only ones who just say no, at least in my son's group. Yet, 36% of our teenagers between the ages of 16 & 19 die in car accidents annually. (It is the leading cause of death among this high risk age group.) In 2004, a total of 4,767 of our teens died that way and 400,000 went to emergency rooms with injuries. Your teenage son or daughter is 4 times more likely to crash than an adult driver and our sons are 1.5 x's more likely to have a fatal accident than our daughters. The risk gets significantly higher with each passenger they add. My husband and I feel like the statistics back up our cautious attitude. I wonder why so many parents worry so much about something as statistically rare as a child abduction but let their teens get behind the wheel without giving it a second thought...