NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) -- Every year, thousands of Tennessee teenagers get behind the wheel and never make it home, but there are ongoing efforts to educate young drivers better.
This week was National Teen Driver Safety Week, and advocates have said that promoting safe driving habits is more important than ever. On the road, there can be a lot of distractions -- there are plenty of opportunities for something dangerous to happen.
"Even at any age seeing them do that, it's scary, but especially seeing your peers -- it hits you on a whole other level," Louis Pratt, a teen driver and advocate for Students Against Destructive Drivers (SADD), said.
According to the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security, more than 130 people were killed in crashes involving drivers between 13 and 19 years old.
"We all hear the stories. We've seen the headlines: teens lost to distracted driving -- this sort of crash and there's this split-second where that could have been my friend that I have math with," Pratt said. "I would never want to see that empty seat happen."
That's why advocates like Pratt have worked to alert their peers when they see dangerous habits on the road. They try to personally connect with teens to make sure those bad habits don't happen again.
"It's not a bunch of adults being like, 'Hey, you can't text and drive.' It's people like me saying to my friends like, 'Hey, why were you texting and driving? That wasn't cool,'" Pratt said. "That resonates with them and that's more effective for them."
A report from Tennessee's Integrated Traffic Analysis Network (TITAN) revealed nearly 23,000 speeding-related crashes happened in Tennessee from 2017 to 2019. Thirty-six percent of those crashes involved drivers between the ages of 18 and 24.
"There's that split second where you're like that could be me, that could be somebody I know, but then also realizing oh my gosh, it's one person, but the ripple effect that those crashes have is insane. Not only is it the victim but the perpetrator too, and the families, and that's just an empty seat," said Pratt.
These reminders come as Rutherford County mourns the loss of a 14-year-old Blackman High School student who was in the car with other high schoolers when another car crashed into them. Investigators are working to determine if speed played a role in the crash. SADD is working to reach the state's goal of zero crashes, by connecting teens with their peers.