In a world where thousands of Americans die at the wheel every year, it’s no surprise that the younger generation will always be receiving the attention of those who wish to teach them a healthy respect of road safety. Parents everywhere stretch the importance of their children’s safety when driving, but if everything our parents say is to be believed, then a cellphone is the source of all that is wrong with the world. And that’s the exact line of thinking that many teens share, and ultimately, this ignorance can and has led to fatal accidents as shown time and time again.

Cat Charles, a senior at GBHS, is an avid teen driver. “From school back, work, home, and in my free time I like to go racing,” Charles said. When asked if she’s ever been in a car crash, she went on to say, “I have not.”

According to the Kansas State 2021 Traffic Crash book, teens 15-19 and young adults 20-24 had nearly the exact same amount of crashes, 11,507 and 11,620 respectively. However, the number of car wrecks that resulted in fatalities in the latter group was a decent chunk larger than the teens. Young adult car crashes resulted in 66 fatality-causing crashes, while teen related crashes only had 40. 

According to this same book, the number of car crashes decreases with age, but the number of crashes that result in fatalities stay the same. This pattern remains until drivers reach 65-69, having only 33 fatalities causing crashes, but this age range only had 3,642 car crashes total. 

So what does this mean? Well- in rough terms, your chance to get into a car crash decreases with age–as teens and young adults are responsible for the most number of crashes, it’s not as large a difference as to be believed–but the likelihood of dying in a car crash only increases. 

But wait! You might be saying. That was only one year. If there was actually such a pattern, wouldn’t it be talked about more? Well-  dear intrepid reader, the pattern stays consistent. 

In 2020 teens had 9,449 car crashes–which is a lot of car crashes–in Kansas, and 36 of those car crashes resulted in fatalities. Nearly every age range had fewer car crashes, but either more or the same amount of fatalities. The only exception to this rule is everyone 65+, although this could easily be attributed to the fact that there are fewer older drivers than younger ones.

In 2019, it was much the same, though teens no longer had the lowest amount of fatality causing crashes. The point remains, however, that even as the amount of car crashes began to decrease, the amount of fatalities didn’t. 

Jake Hofflinger, GBHS’ manufacturing teacher, is a part of the Kansas Safe Seat Belt Awareness Program. More specifically, he’s a sponsor of it. Saying, “…this is basically just a joke, but, you know when you teenagers are always texting each other while they’re driving? A lot of times you’re texting your parents and they’re receiving those text messages as they’re driving too!” 

“No that’s probably not it, but, I do think that the cell phone problem is just as prevalent in the thirty to twenty age group as well.” Hofflinger continued.

Is it really as simple as that? That adults text just as much while driving as teens? Well, yes, as once again the Kansas State 2021 Traffic Crash book has something to add to this discussion. While teens are vehemently the ones with the largest amount of distracted drivers, even up to 35-39 y/o’s, there remains a significant amount of people who will text and drive. A study by the American Auto Association 45% of people ages 25 through 39 admitted to texting while driving. 

That is nearly half of all people, which is a simply ludicrous number. 

It’s kind of sad, all things considered. But what about Great Bend specifically? Jake Hofflinger helped shed some light on this. “We have very few people who are eating while driving, we have very few people who are texting while entering the parking lot…” He continued. “You’re more likely to not be wearing a seatbelt if you show up late… the people who show up early are almost always wearing their seatbelts.”

If anything, it’s a nice statistic to know. And it turns out that texting while driving isn’t just a teenager thing, but something that ties all ages together, for better and for worse. Teens, the next time an adult tries to say that teens are the only ones to text while driving, throw some facts at them. Adults, when teens start throwing facts at you, fight fire with fire, as they’re still responsible for the most overall amount of car crashes.