Underage Driving Accidents

Anyone who has survived adolescence and lived to tell about it can tell you that young people routinely take risks that their elders would be terrified to take.  Car insurance premiums are so much higher for drivers in their early 20s and younger, not only because this age group has less driving experience than older motorists, but also because people who are young enough that bars still card them are more likely to drive at recklessly high speeds and to seek out distractions; consider that even the vainest 40-year-old would wait until the car was in park before taking a selfie, but young people are in such a hurry to show off their fancy ride that they will pose, click to take a picture, choose the clearest image, and post it on social media all within the time it takes to drive through two traffic lights, and if you’re lucky, both lights were green.  Much of this frighteningly risky driving involves newly licensed drivers who passed driver’s ed, so in theory they know what they are and are not supposed to do behind the wheel.  Imagine how dangerous it is when teens who have never had a driver’s license drive.  Several years ago, a deadly crash involving an underage driver raised questions, and eventually a lawsuit, about the official response to risky behavior by at-risk youth.  If you got seriously injured in an accident caused by a driver too young to have a driver’s license, contact a Columbia car accident lawyer.

Police Department Faces Lawsuit After Deadly Car Chase Involving 12-Year-Old Driver

In 2022, a 12-year-old boy took his mother’s car keys while she was asleep and drove her car to a Checker’s to buy food.  His mother had given him a few lessons on how to drive on private property, but it was his first time driving on a public road.  When police saw him, they gave chase, and the boy drove away in a panic.  In an attempt to get home quickly without the police catching him, he increased his speed to 100 miles per hour.  Eventually he collided with another car at an intersection, killing the driver Mary Dent and her sister Shamricka Dent; both victims were in their 30s.

Normally, when the parents of a minor are legally responsible for damage that he or she causes, but since the police were chasing the young driver at the time of the accident, the North Charleston Police Department is the defendant in a lawsuit by the victims’ family.  The boy’s mother told reporters that, by the time of the accident, she had tried numerous times to get help for her son through the juvenile justice system; she knew that, without an intervention, he was at risk of being involved in something terrible like the accident that claimed the lives of Mary and Shamricka Dent, but the police had refused to help because the boy had never been arrested.

Let Us Help You Today

The personal injury lawyers at the Stanley Law Group can help you if you got injured in a car accident involving a teen driver.  Contact The Stanley Law Group in Columbia, South Carolina or call (803)799-4700 for a free initial consultation.

Sources:

live5news.com/2022/07/08/this-could-have-been-prevented-mother-12-year-old-suspect-fatal-crash-speaks-out/

live5news.com/2022/11/17/highway-patrol-charges-pending-deadly-wreck-involving-12-year-old-driver/

live5news.com/2024/06/28/pre-teen-north-charleston-police-sued-over-deadly-july-2022-wreck/