70% Of Underage Drinking Deaths Are Not Traffic-Related

In the USA, the leading cause of death among teenagers is car crashes. In 2010, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tells us, a total of 3,115 Americans aged 13 to 19 died in auto wrecks. One out of three deaths of teenage girls and two out of five deaths of teenage boys occurred cars, and in at least 1,000 of the deadly car crashes in that year, a drunk driver was behind the wheel. But the greater danger to teens from alcohol, a new survey from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) tells us, is homicide or suicide, which claim at least 2,000 teenage lives every year.

If there's anything we know for sure about teens, alcohol, and their parents, it's that parents of teens who have drinking problems are usually the last to know. MADD researchers have found that 1 in 5 American teens indulges in binge drinking, but only 1 in 100 parents is aware of their teen's binge drinking. The overall picture of teens, alcohol, and driving itself is shocking:

• There are over 350,000 crashes (fatal and non-fatal) involving drunk drivers every year in the USA alone.
• If all 17,000,000 Americans who admitted to driving drunk (to surveyors, not to the police) in 2011 had their own state, it would be the fifth largest behind California, Texas, New York, and Florida.
• In 2011, the most recent year for which there are statistics, a total of 9,878 Americans were killed as drunk drivers or by drunk drivers.
• The majority of fatal car crashes occur on weekends.
• One in three Americans will be involved in a car crash with a drunk driver or as a drunk driver at some time in their lives.
• 16-year-olds (who typically have just received their driver's licenses) have the highest crash rate of any age group among American drivers.
• Among teenagers who died in a car crash in 2011, 59% were killed when a teenager was driving. Among Americans of all age groups who died in car crashes in 2011, 17% were killed when a teenager was driving.
• The crash rate per mile is twice as high for 16- and 17-year-old drivers as it is for 18- and 19-year-old drivers.
• Statistics show that for each additional passenger in the car when a 16- or 17-year-old is driving, driver death rates go up.
• One in 10 teens who dies as the result of drunk driving was a pedestrian at the time of the crash.
• In 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available, the cumulative medical costs of treating injuries caused in crashes of cars with teenaged drivers was $34 billion. In 2011, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates, the average American paid $500 in additional auto insurance premiums to account for accidents caused by teenage drivers.

But the most shocking statistics are those that show that most deaths involving teens and drinking have nothing to do with car crashes.

Teen Drinking, Homicide, And Suicide

In April of 2013 Mothers Against Drunk Driving released the results of a study compiling data on alcohol-related deaths among Americans who had not reached legal drinking age (21). The study looked at data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Board (NHTSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The MADD researchers found that the overwhelmingly majority of teenage deaths involving alcohol aren't traffic related:

• 9% of deaths of Americans aged 13 to 20 involving alcohol were alcohol poisonings.
• 14% of deaths of Americans aged 13 to 20 were suicides.
• 32% of deaths of Americans aged 13 to 20 were homicides.

It's true that 38% of alcohol-related deaths of American teens and twenty-year-olds involved car crashes, but the clear message from the MADD study is that making sure teens don't drink and drive is not enough. Any mixture of teens, alcohol, and weapons (knives or firearms) is likely to be deadly, and simply drinking more and more without concern for driving sober, because one does not plan to drive, can result in fatal alcohol poisoning.

But how can parents know there is a potential problem?

Here are some important suggestions.

1. Encourage your kids to get physical exercise, to do systematic muscle building.

While you may also have to have the "steroids talk" if your teens get serious about building muscle, it's a demonstrated fact that muscular teens are more likely to survive car crashes of all kinds and also less likely to get into problems with drinking or drugs.

2. If your teen has ever had to go the emergency room (ER) for treatment of an injury, be on the lookout for troubles with alcohol.

Although there is no known causal relationship between being "accident prone" and alcohol deaths, researchers have found a correlation between ER visits and later alcohol deaths.

3. Seek professional intervention, preferably counseling, when your teen uses a combination of intoxicants, such as alcohol and cocaine.

Particularly among White teens, use of a combination of intoxicating drugs frequently precedes a suicide attempt.

4. Road conditions are as important a factor in teenage survival as drinking.

Teens who are not used to driving in rain, in snow, or on one-lane roads can also be at extreme risk to themselves, to their passengers, and to other drivers on the road,.

5. It isn't enough just to set rules about alcohol use.

The tone with which parents communicate to their children about alcohol has a great deal of influence on the outcomes of parental intervention.

Know what your children are up to. Know where they are, and who they are with, even if they find your questions annoying. And keep lines of communication open so you can communicate the reasons for your rules as teens slowly realize the benefits of boundaries.