Number of Colorado teens killed in traffic crashes is down

The number of Colorado teenagers killed in traffic crashes has dropped drastically in the past four years, the Colorado Department of Transportation said Monday.

Motor vehicle crashes killed 43 Colorado teens in 2007, down more than 50 percent from the 93 teen deaths in 2004, CDOT spokeswoman Heather Halpape said.

Between 2006 and 2007, teen traffic fatalities dropped by a third, Halpape said.

In a news release, officials attributed the drop in part to the strengthening of Colorado’s driver’s license laws.

The state’s Graduated Drivers Licensing program, which took effect in 1999, requires teens to get an instruction permit and a restricted license before obtaining a full license.

Seat belts have helped too, officials said.

Of the 43 teens killed in 2007, more than half weren’t wearing seat belts, Halpape said.

“So many promising young lives are cut short needlessly because they were not wearing a seat belt,” said Colorado State Patrol Col. Mark Trostel.

El Paso County’s teen fatality numbers also have sharply declined.

Two teens died in traffic crashes in El Paso County in 2007 — down from 10 deaths in 2003, Halpape said.

Colorado Springs police spokesman Lt. Skip Arms said it’s hard to pinpoint the cause of the decline. Like homicides, the number of crashes can fluctuate from year to year, he said.

Within Colorado Springs city limits, the number of teen deaths has fluctuated, Arms said, from two in ’03, to one in ’05, back to two in ’07.

In Teller County, one teen died in a traffic crash in 2006, but no teens were killed in 2007 or 2003-2005, Halpape said.

CDOT released the numbers to coincide with the start of the weeklong “Click It or Ticket” seat belt campaign, which reminds drivers to buckle up or face fines.

The numbers classified teens as 14- to 20-year-olds.

For children riding with teen drivers versus adult drivers, the risk of dying in a car crash doubles, according to a national study released Monday by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine magazine and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance.

Between 2000 and 2005, more than 9,800 children ages 8 to 17 were killed in wrecks, with more than half of them riding with a teen driver, the study showed.

Nearly two-thirds of the young passengers weren’t wearing seat belts, the study showed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.