It’s heart-wrenching to see the photos of Danielle Ranger, the 16-year-old who died Sunday after crashing her car into a tree the night before.
Her bright smile glows from beneath the brim of her firefighter’s helmet in one photo, her dark hair is blowing in another taken outdoors.
“Dani” was a junior at Dirigo High School, an athlete, a junior firefighter for the Dixfield Fire Company and a member of the Western Foothills Junior Firefighter Program.
She was clearly a young lady on track to become a leader in her community when that bright future was cut short.
Every highway death is, of course, tragic in its own right.
But Dani’s death follows a cautionary report released last week by the American Automobile Foundation for Traffic Safety.
It found that young drivers have a 50 percent greater chance of being involved in an accident within their first month of driving than one year later.
Danielle Ranger was only slightly beyond that point, having received her license to drive alone 10 weeks before.
The research found that the majority of accidents were for speeding, inattention or failing to yield to other cars. The most frequent type of accident involved a young person simply plowing into the rear of a stopped car.
Interestingly, accidents were less likely on slow-speed neighborhood roads or on high-speed, limited-access highways.
Most occurred on roads where the speed limit was between 35 and 55 mph, exactly the type of roadway that connects most rural communities.
A separate AAA study involved mounting cameras in the cars of 38 families with teenage drivers while they were learning to drive with their parents and then after receiving their license to drive solo.
Comparing the before and after videos showed a day-and-night difference.
With their parents, teens were more likely to drive during the day and in good weather.
That changed dramatically when they began driving alone. They more often drove at night, in inclement weather, with music blaring and friends chattering.
In other words, they learned to drive in one environment and suddenly found themselves driving in another.
The AAA study found little difference in accident rates between 16- and 17-year-old teens receiving their licenses. Accidents for both groups declined only as the teens became more experienced.
Although the report doesn’t say so, the other possible reason for improvement may be near-misses.
It is logical to think that some teens are lucky enough to be “scared straight” by a close call, like dropping a tire off the road or pulling in front of another vehicle, that doesn’t result in a crash.
Perhaps they eventually discover the limits of their driving skills from these scary but harmless mistakes.
The lesson in the AAA research for parents is that driver education and parental instruction are a good start, but they simply cannot replace the judgment and skill that comes from months and years of practice.
The good news is that even young drivers are rapid learners. The challenge is keeping them safe until they learn.
rrhoades@sunjournal.com
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