While the number of fatalities from traffic incidents has been decreasing over the last decade, a study released by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) shows that the fatal crash risk for teens with passengers has grown during that same decade. The report presents national data on fatal crashes in which teens (age 13-17) were present. The report's researchers then compared patterns for novice drivers with young adult drivers (age 18-24) to come up with a "relative risk index." TTI found that the risk for novice drivers with a single teen passenger increased over the last 10 years from 3.7 to 5.1 (so drivers in 2011 were more than five times more likely to have a fatal crash as compared to young adult drivers). When novice drivers carry two or more passengers, the "teen passenger fatal crash connection" was 7.7, up from 5.9 just 10 years ago (or almost eight times as likely to experience a fatal crash incident as compared to young adults). The report's authors said there are many reasons for this increase, including the overall lack of experience, the learning curve associated with driving, the lack of understanding the consequences of these fatal crashes, and distracted driving behaviors.  Read more.