Arizona Towns With The Worst Teen Drivers
which city takes the crown?
As recovering data junkies and fathers of teenage drivers, we wanted to look at teen accidents by city to let our kids know where not to go. We obtained teen driver accident rates from the AZ Department of Transportation to determine if the national trends of reduced teen driving accidents are reflecting in Arizona. The results are mixed.
From 2018 to 2022, the number of teen driver accidents reported in Arizona has shown varying trends. Here are the annual figures:
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2018: There were 11,586 crashes involving teen drivers.
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2019: This number slightly decreased to 11,073 crashes.
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2020: There was a noticeable decline to 9,887 crashes, likely influenced by reduced traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2021: The number increased again to 10,427 crashes.
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2022: The trend continued upward with 10,793 crashes reported.
Implications
Before we jump to conclusions, one has to understand that from 2018-2022, Arizona witnessed a statewide population increase of over 201,000 since 2018 and that has to be factored into our analysis.
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All Accidents Are Local
While examining national and statewide trends provides direction on the effectiveness of driver safety campaigns, telematics and other awareness items, we wanted to look deeper and find out where the accidents are occurring and is location impacting driver safety. Why? Arizona State University has a student population well over 70,000. The University of Arizona has over 30,000 students with NAU and Grand Canyon (excluding online) both having student populations north of 25,000. With an influx of students each year (sans COVID years), we have to take a deeper dive on the city level to see if new young residents are positively or negatively impacting accident rates. First, we examined accidents in cities that have over 50,000 residents in Arizona. Our sample set included the following: In addition, we looked at it on a per capita (per thousand teen) basis, to normalize the effect of population growth.
Tempe Town Screech?
Flagstaff, Tempe and Tucson are usual suspects given the fact that these are college towns. With Tempe, however, the accident incidence is such a large outlier that we had to do a bit of normalization to get a better comparison due to how the age range includes a large number of part-time students. To account for the locals attending ASU, we looked at the three Tempe High Schools (Marcos De Niza HS, McClintock HS and Tempe HS) and combined the three years of graduates (about 1200 per year per class) and about 30% of them attend ASU. Then we added the number of ASU students ages 16-19 to get a better representation of the student population. Despite the inflation in students, Tempe still wins, hands down.
key takeaways
1. Telematics. In other states, telematics has reduced teen accident rates. According to a study by the University of Iowa in 2018, telematics-based feedback led to a 76% reduction in unsafe driving events among teen drivers. The study highlighted the effectiveness of real-time feedback in promoting safe driving habits. In 2019, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study revealed that teens with telematics devices had a 30% lower crash risk compared to their peers without such devices. The study also noted a significant reduction in high-risk behaviors such as speeding and hard braking.
We recommend a large scale pilot test with ASU students to encourage student adoption and to measure the effect of telematics on accident rates.
2. Park and rides. If you are a concerned parent with a student that commutes to ASU and your child drives, look into using park and ride and public transportation options to limit their time on the road during times of heavy traffic. If you are a savvy parent, you may want to encourage your children to live and study near a safe residence located near a park and ride.
3. Seasonal Awareness. Given the influx of seasonal residents (snowbirds) and continued migration into the state, we also recommend that teens know alternative routes in their local city and throughout the state to avoid congested areas. Mobile and online mapping tools do a decent job of re-routing drivers away from congestion, but it is often due to a real-time emergency. Knowing in advance would limit exposure to congestion, which would undoubtedly create a more safer driving environment.
4. Satire. The quote from Wilbur is satire as this document was authored by an ASU graduate and should be viewed as such. With that said, we will examine the most dangerous intersections in Tempe to determine if congestion and road improvements are contributing to the teen accident rates.
