We are not alone

Australia has come to realise that teenagers are among the nation's most at-risk drivers and passengers.

While various patchy state laws about horsepower ratings, curfews and the number of passengers in a vehicle dabble at the fringe of the problem, it may be of cold comfort to know that we are not alone in having disproportionately high new-driver fatalities.

And it seems American law-makers are even further behind the problem than their Australian counterparts.

Car crashes are the number one killer of American teens. More than 5000 teens die on American roads every year, according to the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

American insurer Allstate has released figures that identify the deadliest hotspots for teen drivers on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day -- and they're not where you might expect them to be -- the high-volume, high-mobility areas of California, or high-density places plagued with bad weather, like New York -- no, the most dangerous city to be a US teen on the road is Jacksonville in Florida. In 2006, Jacksonville ranked as the United States' twelfth most populous city, with 794,555 residents.

The Holiday Teen Driving Hotspots study examined recent federal crash statistics, Allstate claims data on teen collisions, and US Census Bureau statistics to score metro areas across the nation on rates of fatal crashes involving teen drivers during the holidays. The study was conducted in conjunction with BestPlaces.net, a research firm specialising in demographic studies and analysis.

American lawmakers are being urged to enact stronger state-level Graduated Driver Laws that allow novice drivers to gain driving experience gradually and under low-risk situations. As in Australia, GD laws typically involve longer periods of supervised driving, restrictions on late-night driving, limits on teen passengers and mobile phone bans for drivers.

Astoundingly, a country which sees over 5000 dead teenagers a year, has not yet passed these laws. It should be noted that in many states, Americans can drive from their 16th birthday.

For the record, the ten most dangerous places in the US to be a teen on the road on New Year's Eve are:
Jacksonville, Florida
Columbus, Ohio
Richmond, Virginia
Birmingham, Alabama
Orlando, Florida
Phoenix, Arizona
Las Vegas, Nevada
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sacramento, California
St. Louis, Missouri