From 2020 to 2024, 18,335 drivers aged 15 to 19 and 16,732 drivers aged 75 or older were involved in fatal crashes on US roads. The two groups are close in size, but their crashes look very different: when they happened, what police recorded about them, and who died.
Being involved in a fatal crash does not mean the driver caused it. FARS records every driver in a crash in which someone died, whether or not they were at fault.
| Drivers 15–19 | Drivers 20–64 | Drivers 65–74 | Drivers 75+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drivers in fatal crashes | 18,335 | 221,718 | 23,736 | 16,732 |
| Crash between 6pm and 6am | 56.9% | 52.4% | 32.4% | 21.7% |
| Crash at a weekend | 34.4% | 32.3% | 26.8% | 23.4% |
| Police reported the driver speeding | 34.4% | 20.8% | 9.4% | 7.7% |
| Police reported the driver drinking | 13.8% | 20.3% | 9.3% | 3.8% |
| Crash at or near an intersection | 31.7% | 28.6% | 33.0% | 41.9% |
| Driver died | 41.5% | 44.1% | 53.4% | 66.1% |
Night for teens, daytime for older drivers
For teen drivers, 56.9% of fatal crashes happened between 6pm and 6am. For drivers aged 75 and over it was 21.7%. Almost half of the older drivers' crashes, 47.2%, happened in the middle of the day, between 9am and 3pm, compared with 18.4% for teen drivers.
Older drivers' crashes were also more often at intersections. Police recorded 41.9% of them at or near an intersection, and 38.7% began as an angle collision with another vehicle, where one vehicle strikes the side of another. For teen drivers the figures were 31.7% and 28.6%.
These patterns partly reflect when and where each group drives, which FARS does not record. It counts crashes, not miles driven or licensed drivers, so it cannot show whether one group is more likely to crash than another.
Speeding and drinking
Police reported that 34.4% of teen drivers in fatal crashes were speeding, which covers racing, going too fast for conditions and exceeding the speed limit. That is more than four times the share for drivers aged 75 and over, 7.7%.
Police reported that 13.8% of teen drivers had been drinking, lower than the 20.3% for drivers aged 20 to 64, and 3.8% of drivers aged 75 and over.
Who died
The deaths in these crashes fall on different people. In the 17,833 fatal crashes involving a teen driver, 20,256 people died; in the 16,273 involving a driver aged 75 or over, 17,796 died:
| Who died | Crashes with a driver 15–19 | Crashes with a driver 75+ |
|---|---|---|
| The driver | 7,604 (37.5%) | 11,054 (62.1%) |
| Passengers in that driver's vehicle | 4,147 (20.5%) | 2,200 (12.4%) |
| People in other vehicles | 6,046 (29.8%) | 3,135 (17.6%) |
| Pedestrians, cyclists and others outside a vehicle | 2,459 (12.1%) | 1,407 (7.9%) |
| All deaths | 20,256 | 17,796 |
One in five people who died in teen drivers' crashes was a passenger in the teen's vehicle. Most of those passengers were young too: 2,589 of the 4,147, or 62.4%, were aged 15 to 19, and 447 were under 15.
In crashes involving a driver aged 75 or over, 62.1% of those who died were the older drivers themselves. Most of the passengers who died in their vehicles were older too: 1,613 were aged 75 or over.
Seat belts
Among drivers of cars, SUVs, vans and pickups who died, police reported that 51.9% of teen drivers were not wearing a seat belt, 2,778 of the 5,354 whose belt use was known. For drivers aged 75 and over the figure was 29.6%, 2,769 of 9,361. For drivers aged 20 to 64 it was 54.6%.
These are the drivers who died, not all drivers. There is no count here of how many drivers in each age group wear a belt, so the figures cannot show how much a belt changed the outcome.
More older drivers in fatal crashes each year
The number of drivers aged 75 and over in fatal crashes rose every year of the period, by 31.0% from 2020 to 2024. In 2024, for the first time in these five years, there were more of them than teen drivers.
| Year | Drivers 15–19 | Drivers 75+ |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 3,346 | 2,824 |
| 2021 | 3,849 | 3,280 |
| 2022 | 3,632 | 3,460 |
| 2023 | 3,841 | 3,468 |
| 2024 | 3,667 | 3,700 |
FARS does not say how many people in each age group are driving, or how far, so it cannot show whether the rise reflects more older drivers on the road or something else.
About these figures
Drivers are the drivers of vehicles in traffic, counted once for each vehicle, so a crash with two teen drivers counts both. Ages are as recorded in FARS; 8,605 drivers with no recorded age and 471 under 15 are left out. Speeding and drinking are what police recorded for that driver, which is narrower than the site's speeding-related and drinking driver crash counts, and neither means the driver caused the crash. Drivers with speeding not known (942 aged 15–19, 829 aged 75+), crash time not known (82 and 80), intersection not known (16 and 19) or belt use not known (696 and 677 of those who died) are left out of those shares. "At night" is 6pm to 6am and weekends are Saturday and Sunday. How the data works