Teenage Driver Causes Major Car Accident in Poway

In recent years there has been a raging debate about what is the best age to allow a person to obtain a driver’s license. For teenagers, it is a rite of passage to get a driver’s license, but in increasing numbers teen drivers are causing mayhem on the roads. While road fatalities have dropped in the last twenty years, deaths involving newly licensed drivers have been on the increase. In fact, highway safety specialists have called it a “silent epidemic.”

Case in point: On Sunday, a Ramona woman named Melissa Jean Day was hit head on while driving on Route 67 in Poway. The accident occurred when a pickup truck driven by a 17-year-old boy (with a 15-year-old passenger) hit a curb, then drove his truck across the center lane and striking Day’s car. Day died in the accident, and her two daughters, ages 11 and 14, were injured. A truly, truly tragic accident.

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According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety delaying the age at which drivers are licensed saves lives. Most European countries, as well as Japan, China, Brazil and Russia do not license drivers until age 18. Delaying the age, the argument goes, allows teens to mature before they get behind the wheel. No doubt it would save a lot of lives.

The Escondido injury and accident attorneys at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals who have been injured by car accidents, defective products, construction accidents, dog bites, and other cases involving negligence, including cases of wrongful death.