Teen Drivers Caught on Tape

March 28 -- It's every parent's nightmare: teenagers behind the wheel.

And they're right to worry: Statistics show that 16-year-olds are three times more likely to have an accident than 18- or 19-year-olds, and eight times as likely as 25-year-olds. A young driver is involved in a fatal crash every 62 minutes, and car accidents are the leading cause of death for 15- to 20-year-olds. In 2000, 3,594 drivers in that age group were killed in crashes.

A new survey in Southern California has found that teen drivers are even more reckless than researchers had feared. In the survey, more than 70 percent of teen drivers in San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties said they had been involved in drunk driving, drag racing or other reckless driving behavior.

Doctors say that 16 — the traditional driving age in most states — may be the worst age to give children their driver's licenses, because at that age they are often in the middle of a growth spurt in which their bodies grow faster than their central nervous system.

"Their eye-hand coordination and their other fine motor skills are less adept when they're in the middle of their growth spurt," says Lawrence D'Angelo of Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who talks to parents about teen driving.

At 16, there are also psychological factors at play, D'Angelo says. "What happens when a parent tells a 16-year-old to slow down or keep your eye on the road is that often that 16-year-old tunes their parent out and does just the opposite."

D'Angelo says teenagers' problems with adolescence often play out inside the car. "It's a terrible place for adolescents to act out their rebellion."

Caught on Tape

Primetime wanted to find out how prepared kids are when they get their license at age 16, so in 1997 the show's producers followed several new drivers as they drove their hometowns, often with friends on board. Cameras inside the kids' cars recorded what they were doing behind the wheel. The teenagers knew the cameras were there, but did not seem too concerned about them.