Chris Smith: It’s exciting, and full of peril, to be 16 and behind the wheel

I believe I was 16, but may have turned 17, when I was driving my first car and came the closest I’ve ever knowingly come to killing or badly injuring someone.

I was at the wheel and stopped on a residential street when a high school friend hopped up and sat on the mile-long hood of my rattling old Pontiac Grand Prix.

The guy howled and rocked backwards, toward the windshield, when I gave the car a little gas. Then I hit the brakes and he slid clear off the hood.

He could have taken a header onto the pavement, but he managed to stay on his feet. I didn’t intend for my huge car to then roll forward and nearly strike him, but it did.

Five decades later, I still can see the terror and anger in his eyes.

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Six teens ages 16 to 19 die every day from motor vehicle injuries. Per mile driven, teen drivers are nearly three times more likely than drivers age 20 and older to be in a fatal crash, according to the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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SOMETIME LATER, school was about to close for summer break when a great, older coach who also taught driver’s ed had a bunch of us gather around him.

He implored us to be safe and smart and responsible while driving. I forget if he said it happened every summer or most every summer that he would lose a student to a crash.

I thought of him weeks later when a schoolmate died the instant the car he was driving too fast plowed into a roadside tree.

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Teen drivers are more than 2½ times more likely to engage in potentially risky behaviors when driving with one teenage peer, compared to when driving alone. … In fact, research shows that the risk of a fatal crash goes up in direct relation to the number of teenagers in the car, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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OUR CULTURE bears some responsibility for the harrowing tragedy at Skyfarm and Thomas Lake Harris drives in Fountaingrove that at or about 12:20 a.m. Monday ended a life and forever changed countless others.

California allows 16-year-olds to obtain a driver’s license. And we parents are too often lackadaisical about enforcing rules such as those that prohibit drivers age 16 from driving without adult accompaniment between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., or with other teens or children in the car.

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The “100 Deadliest Days” for new teen drivers fall between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Between 2010 and 2016, more than 1,600 people perished in crashes involving inexperienced teen drivers during this deadly period, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

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WE WON’T SAVE every teenager imperiled by the dangers that confront all drivers and especially those new to the challenges of the road, and by peer pressure and poor judgment emblematic of the age.

But surely many former 16-year-olds are alive and thriving because they took to heart the urgings of parents and others close to them that they speak up or get out when they don’t like what’s happening in a car, and they always buckle up and they never, ever drive under the influence.

There might be no greater tribute to Taylor Sorg just now than to clip her name and tape it to the dashboard.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707 521-5211.