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Automobile crashes are among the leading causes of death in children of all ages. Research has delineated a variety of risk factors that contribute to crashes involving teenage drivers,1 - 2 but very little attention has been given to crashes in which drivers are younger than 15 years.3 The present study reports a 5-year national analysis of crash deaths involving cars, vans, or trucks driven by children younger than 15 years and occurring on public-access roadways. The data were drawn from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).
This study excludes crashes in which children were driving farm equipment, all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, dune buggies, or go-carts—even when these were operated on public roadways. Vehicle crashes involving cars, vans, or trucks but occurring on private property inaccessible to the public were also excluded.
Between 1996 and the end of 2000, there were 378 fatal crashes involving cars, vans, or trucks driven by children aged 14 years or younger (Table 1). In these crashes, a total of 436 persons died, including 179 young drivers and 86 other children ranging in age from 2 through 14 years. The remaining 171 individuals killed were aged 15 through 86 years, most of whom were teenagers and young adults.
Crashes were not evenly distributed among the states. The largest numbers of fatal crashes occurred in Texas (45), California (26), Georgia (21), and Florida (20). A different picture emerges when crash rates are calculated. Five-year rates per 10 000 children were highest in South Dakota (1.7), North Dakota (1.0), Montana (0.7), Wyoming (0.6), and Kansas (0.5). Just over 60% of all crashes occurred on rural roads. In Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and a number of the Plains states (Kansas, Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma)—states in which at least 40% of the population lives in urban centers—crashes occurred almost exclusively on rural roadways. Nearly half of all urban crashes occurred in California, Georgia, Florida, and Texas, although only in California did the number of urban crashes exceed those in rural areas.
Despite very large populations of children, New York and Pennsylvania each had small numbers of crashes, with rates only 5% of those in comparably sized Texas and Florida, respectively. Such sizable variations in crash rates are unexplained by FARS data and may be attributable to differences in driving culture, parental attitudes and control, or law enforcement. Such differences suggest opportunities for prevention and deserve more study.
Our study demonstrates that each year, approximately 85 deaths occur from motor vehicle crashes in which the driver is younger than 15 years. This study is limited both by its reliance on the accuracy and completeness of FARS data and also by the restriction of FARS data to crashes occurring on public-access roadways. Additional studies of fatal crashes off public roadways could add to our understanding of where and how deaths occur when children drive motor vehicles.
This study was partially funded by a grant from the Wichita Medical Research and Education Foundation, Wichita, Kan.
Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature
Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal
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