It's 86 percent more likely with two teenage passengers and 182 percent with three or more. It's also higher if the passengers are males. The figures are almost as grim when the teenage driver is accompanied by passengers in their 20s. If we are honest, all of us will admit that we used to fill our cars with our pals and act silly and stupid when we were teenage drivers. For one thing, in states like Arkansas, kids as young as 14 are allowed to drive a car under certain circumstances, and that wasn't the case when I was growing up.
Speed limits are much higher than they used to be.
Soccer moms tend to believe that because their kids are smart in school they will also be smart behind the wheel. Besides, the sooner the oldest kid can get a license the quicker he or she can help mom with the daily chauffeuring of the younger siblings, who have so much more after-school activity than we used to. Kentucky leads the nation in the number of teenagers killed in automobile accidents. Seven of the top 10 are Southern states, including Arkansas, which is in eighth place. In 1998, there were 101.