FARMINGTON – The number of car crashes involving youth and young adult drivers in New Mexico declined in 2018 compared with 2017, when there was a record high for the past five years, the New Mexico Department of Health announced Saturday.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for 15- to 20-year-olds across the country.
“These new numbers are great news, but we can – and should – still strive for better,” said Department of Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel in a statement. Kunkel credits provisional licensing and zero-tolerance laws in the state for the decrease in crashes but says the “impact of parents’ role in modeling good driving behavior, such as not texting while driving, not driving while under the influence and following traffic laws, should not be discounted.”
The state requires teen drivers to have a temporary license for a year before they can get an unrestricted driver’s license. During those 12 months, drivers cannot drive without a licensed adult between midnight and 5 a.m. and can have only one passenger under the age of 21 who is not a family member.
Last year, 58 New Mexico residents between the ages of 15 and 24 died in a motor vehicle crash, down from 64 deaths in 2017, according to the state. While 165 were admitted to a hospital because of injuries from a crash in 2018, that was down from 190 hospital admittances in 2017.
A majority of teen driver crashes in the U.S. are because of “critical errors,” according to the National Highway Safety Administration. The department defines critical errors as a “lack of scanning to detect and respond to hazards, going too fast for road conditions and being distracted by something inside or outside of the vehicle.”
Distracted driving is a leading concern for young drivers in New Mexico. Roughly 40% of high school students in the state admitted to texting or emailing while driving in the past 30 days in a 2017 survey. More than 7% reported they never or rarely wore a seat belt, and more than 6% admitted to drinking and driving.
Jamie Lugan with the San Juan Regional Medical Center ambulance service said anecdotally she has not noticed a decrease in car crashes around the Farmington area, and she is not certain what criteria the state used in its analysis.
lweber@durangoherald.com