State transportation leaders and health experts are sounding the alarm about a worrying trend unfolding in Massachusetts: More young people are dying behind the wheel right now than at any other time in recent memory.
According to an analysis of MassDOT data conducted by GBH News, this year is already on track to be the deadliest for young drivers since 2015, the earliest year for which data is available. That’s despite non-fatal crashes being on trend overall with prior years. Experts say the discrepancy could be the result of multiple factors, including cars being safer but more young drivers engaging in risky behaviors, like speeding or distracted driving.
During the first eight months of this year, 22 people under the age of 21 were killed while operating a car, truck or motorcycle. That’s 80% higher than the yearly average for the same eight-month period over the past decade. This year’s fatality count puts the state on track to surpass the highest yearly figure in recent memory, when 24 young drivers died in 2022.
“I am concerned,” said Colleen Ogilvie, who leads the Registry of Motor Vehicles in Massachusetts. “And this is just a partial year. So we are concerned about the trajectory of that number.”
While there is no readily available data on the number of fatalities for drivers under the age of 21 nationally so far this year, Ogilvie said that Massachusetts’ numbers fall in line with a concerning increase in dangerous accidents involving young drivers across the country in recent years. She referenced a recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration analysis that found 2,148 young drivers died in traffic crashes in 2023, a 5% increase from 2,037 in 2022. From 2015 to 2019 — before the COVID-19 pandemic — about 1,600 to 1,900 young drivers were killed in crashes nationwide each year.
“We’re talking about 18 teens per day dying [nationally],” Ogilvie said. “And so when you think of it in those specific terms of what’s happening on a daily basis and what the potential is of how many teens in our life that we could lose on a single day, I think it’s time for a call to action for us all to come together and say, how can we work together to fix this?”
There’s no clear explanation for why 2025 has been so deadly for young drivers, experts said, but the trend in Massachusetts is primarily driven by boys and young men. Of this year’s 24 young driver fatalities, 18 involved male drivers and four involved female drivers.
“That’s a major difference,” said Mark Schieldrop, a senior spokesman for AAA Northeast, which has partnered with MassDOT to increase awareness surrounding teen driving safety. “Girls are still dying behind the wheel, but when we look at the data, it clearly tells us that something’s off and that disparity is so significant that we really need to pay extra attention to our male drivers.”
Aside from the gender disparity, Schieldrop said that an increase in speeding combined with a lack of seatbelt use could be driving the trend. About 35% of all teen crashes involve speeding, he said. And in Massachusetts, seven of the 18 young drivers who died between January and July of this year were not wearing seatbelts. Many of those, Schieldrop argued, could have been prevented.
“We know that wearing a seatbelt is going to reduce your risk of dying in a crash by about 50 percent, so if all those young people were wearing seatbelts, three or four of them would still be alive today,” he said. “That’s a really nuts and bolts type of advice — to always wear your seatbelt. And for some reason, teens are opting not to by a large margin.”
According to Dr. Rebecca Robbins, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, distracted driving — primarily fueled by the increasing prevalence of smartphones — could also be to blame.
Robbins conducted a study this year that found 70% of students with driver’s licenses reported using or making long glances toward their phones while driving. According to her research, the majority of young drivers (65%) reported using their phones for entertainment while driving.
“They [people under the age of 21] have come up in a world where they’ve only known access to screens,” Robbins said. “So I think the younger generation does struggle to resist the temptation to drive distracted or resist the use of a phone while driving.”
Robbins also noted that many young drivers are not getting enough sleep, which can make it challenging to stay focused behind the wheel. According to her research, roughly 70% of high schoolers fall short of their biological need for sleep, putting them at risk of unsafe behavior behind the wheel and increasing their reaction time to stimuli that they may encounter on the road.
According to Robbins, sleep and distracted driving are two sides of the same coin, and getting young people to spend time away from their phones could be key to both more rest and safer behavior behind the wheel.
“Many young people report being on their phone until the very moment that they want to be falling asleep,” she said. “Cultivating skills in our young people to resist the urge to be checking the phone constantly, to be responding to every notification — that might improve driving behavior and our ability to get a good night’s sleep.”
The best way to encourage younger people to stay off their phones remains an open question, Robbins said, adding that more research must be done on the subject. She did, however, note that her study found putting a phone on “do not disturb” mode or simply storing it in the back seat helped young drivers “remain focused and reduce the temptation to drive distracted.”
“Little things really can help,” she said.
