How Much of a Threat Are New York’s Teen Drivers?

Hold onto your seatbelts. You won't believe what a new investigation said about New York's youngest drivers.

We now know where to find the nation's best and worst teen drivers. If you think New York's youngest drivers are the most inept, prepare to be stunned.

Before we look at the results, let's journey back in time to when we celebrated our sweet 16th. It's unlikely any of us weren't excited about experiencing the ultimate rite of passage after we blew out our birthday candles.

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Most of us worked extremely hard to obtain our driver's license. All the studying, hours of driving practice, and countless lectures eventually paid off with us smiling awkwardly at the DMV camera -- and cringing at the horrible photo plastered on our shiny, plastic license.

Still, most of us took the privilege seriously and now consider ourselves decent drivers.

According to a new study from WalletHub, teens from the Empire State just set a new example for the rest of the country.

NY Teens Among Nation's Best

Crazy to think a state internationally known for having bad drivers has a decent track record when it comes to teen. In fact, our state is one of the safest places for kids to obtain a license.

This is especially important since motor vehicle accidents continue to be among the leading cause of death among those aged 16 to 19. According to most recent data, nearly 3,000 teenagers lost their lives in car crashes in 2020.

It's also been found that crashes involving teen drivers cost the national economy $49.7 billion annually, such as covering work loss and medical expenses. Apparently the number is even higher if you include items like insurance premiums, traffic citations and repairs.

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But, it appears teens in New York are among the safest in the nation. In fact, the only other state that ranked higher than us in this latest roundup was Oregon.

New York is 2nd-safest state for teen drivers

Using data involving 23 key metrics related to teen drivers; such as driving fatalities per capita, average cost of car repairs, and laws on the books, WalletHub has ranked the performance of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

WalletHub found New York was the state with the fewest teen driver fatalities per capita in the entire country and also had the fourth-lowest rate of teen DUIs per population.

While New York ranked second-best overall, the Empire State was actually the #1 safest state for teen drivers.

Additionally, the state had the fifth-best driving laws in the nation. Not everything was rainbows and sunshine, however, because New York ranked 25th when it came to economic environment.

The latter category covered the maximum cost of certain traffic infractions and fines related to teen-driving accidents as well as how much insurances increase a parent's premium after a crash.

It also included cost of repairs and gas prices - and the latter may be why we sank like a stone in the latest roundup.

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WalletHub used data from official sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Governors Highway Safety Association, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

So it seems their findings are pretty official. But how do you feel about the state of our teen drivers - do you think they got it right? Let us know.

You can also check out WalletHub's interactive map to see how we compared to the rest of the nation.

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