Car Accidents Involving Underage Drivers

Getting a learner’s permit is a rite of passage. When you are 15-years old, you can get a learner’s permit by taking a written test on traffic laws. Once you have the learner’s permit, you can drive as long as there is a licensed driver who is at least 21 years old in the front passenger seat. That person is usually a driver’s ed teacher or an unusually courageous family member. Some teens do not want to drive without an experienced copilot even after they pass the road test and get an unrestricted driver’s license, while others are eager to go for a solo drive and feel the freedom of the open road. When teens who do not have an unrestricted driver’s license go out driving alone, it is not only dangerous but also illegal. The doctrine of vicarious liability holds the teens’ parents and the owners of the vehicle the unlicensed teen was driving, responsible for the damage resulting from the accident that the teen driver causes. If you got injured in a car accident caused by an unlicensed, underage driver, contact a Columbia car accident lawyer.

Unaccompanied 15-Year-Old Dies After Crossing the Center Lane and Colliding With Pickup Truck

Early one evening in September 2025, a 15-year-old boy was driving a Honda on White Hall Road in Colleton County. As often happens with inexperienced drivers, he let his car drift out of its lane, and as often happens with inexperienced drivers, he overcorrected. This caused him to cross the center line of the road into oncoming traffic and to collide head on with a pickup truck. The collision caused both vehicles to careen off the road and crash into a tree. The 15-year-old driver of the Honda, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was pronounced dead at the scene of the collision. He was not ejected from the vehicle, as sometimes happens with unrestrained drivers. Instead, he was trapped inside the vehicle, and rescuers had to extract him. The driver and passenger in the pickup truck, both of whom were adults, were injured, but their injuries were not life-threatening.

Legal Liability for Accidents Caused by Underage Drivers

The legal doctrine of vicarious liability means that the parents of minor children are legally responsible for damage caused by their minor children and that the owners of property are legally responsible for the damage caused by their property. In personal injury lawsuits, this means that injured people can sue the owner of the car that the at fault driver was driving, even if the vehicle owner was not the driver. In this case, if the car that the teen was driving did not belong to his parents, they may have a case against the adult who let the teen borrow their car.

Let Us Help You Today

The personal injury lawyers at the Stanley Law Group can help you get adequate compensation for your medical bills and other accident-related expenses after a car accident caused by an underage driver.  Contact The Stanley Law Group in Columbia, South Carolina or call (803)799-4700 for a free initial consultation.

Source:

live5news.com/2025/09/05/new-reports-reveal-teen-victim-deadly-colleton-county-2-car-crash/