Distracted teenage drivers caught on camera in horrifying accidents

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety analyzed about 1,700 takes of footage involving teenage drivers and the moments just before they crash. The videos are horrifying and disturbing, as the common cause of the accidents is distracted driving.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - Nearly 60 percent of the moderate to severe vehicle crashes examined are caused by distractions, four times greater than reports from police records.

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15 percent of these horrible accidents are because the driver was distracted talking to passengers; cellphone use causes 12 percent.

Driver distractions also include looking inside the car for something, rather than keeping their eyes on the road, (10 percent). Looking outside but still not on the road caused 9 percent of accidents.

Other analyzed crashes involved the drivers singing or moving to music, (8 percent); grooming (6 percent); and reaching for something inside the car (6 percent), as cited in the Daily Mail.

According to the foundation's president and CEO Peter Kissinger, the videos gave "indisputable evidence that teen drivers are distracted in a much greater percentage of crashes than we previously realized."

This is in comparison with the previous estimation made by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that driver distraction only accounts for 14 percent of the overall vehicular accidents with teenager drivers. These made the foundation and other traffic safety groups ask states to review licensing requirements of teens to restrict the number of passengers they could have, as well as changes in the laws with regards to cellphone use on the road.

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