By Katie Parkinson

On her way to school, she exited the highway as usual and got ready to merge with traffic. As she was yielding, the driver behind her kept going, right into the rear end of her car. Not only was her car wrecked, but she also had to undergo five months of physical therapy for intense headaches and back pain.

One car crash was all it took for senior Rachel Shedd to become another teenage driving statistic.

In 2009, 11 percent of all drivers in the United States involved in fatal car accidents were between 15 and 20 years old.

According to principal of student affairs Mary Anne Hoecker, the administration has recently received three complaints about reckless student driving. Neighbors and other students have noticed STA girls weaving in and out of traffic on Ward Parkway and Wornall Road, and speeding on sidestreets near the school.

“If [teenagers] have not experienced an accident they don’t know how traumatic it can be,” Hoecker said. “Driving recklessly to get somewhere in time is not worth the consequences of harming someone, and I think [teenagers] have to slow down enough to really understand that.”

According to Shedd, being in such a serious accident has made her a much more careful driver.

“It just makes me mad when I see people driving so carelessly because they don’t realize how dangerous it is because they haven’t seen or experienced an accident,” Shedd said.

According to the Missouri Department of Transportation website, 13.67 percent of the 296,796 drivers in Missouri ages 16 – 20 were involved in car crashes in 2009. This means one in every seven teenagers was in a car accident that year. People in this age group also had the highest rate of car crashes at 18,017 accidents during the year.

“I think sometimes [teenagers] live in the moment when they could be late for school or something else, and so they’re thinking about speeding to get there, rather than safety while driving,” Hoecker said.

According to newly licensed driver sophomore Grace Bullington, she is conscious of not always being as careful as possible sometimes.

“I try to be a defensive driver, but I don’t always think about it since I have never experienced an accident,” Bullington said. “I think never being in [an accident] makes it seem like it could never happen to me.”

In 2009, 196,000 15 – 20 year old drivers were injured in motor vehicle crashes, according to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis. This means 1.5 percent of the 13.3 million drivers in this age group were hurt badly enough to be taken to a hospital.

“A lot of people just don’t think about the huge responsibility and the dangers of driving,” Shedd said.

Last year two teenagers who had been involved in crippling car accidents came and talked in the freshman class meeting about their experiences. Hoecker believes programs about safe driving can help teenagers experience and understand car accidents and their consequences.

“I think a person just has to slow down and really visualize what [being in a car crash] would be like,” Hoecker said.