Alcohol-Related Crashes and Teen Drivers
What legal recourse do you have if you are in a crash with a teen driver who has been drinking? Contact a Virginia accident attorney for details and assistance.
Most parents believe their child wouldn’t get behind the wheel after drinking. It’s a natural assumption. You’ve had the conversations, set the expectations, and maybe even made a deal about calling for a ride no matter what. And yet the data tells a different story — one that plays out on roads across Virginia and the entire country, year after year.
Teen drunk driving isn’t a fringe problem. It’s widespread, it’s documented, and the crashes it causes leave victims — often completely innocent people in other vehicles — dealing with injuries and losses that can follow them for the rest of their lives.
If you or a loved one has been injured in a teen drunk driving crash, call Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp to speak with a Virginia Beach car accident lawyer and learn what legal options you have.
What the Numbers Actually Show
According to the most current data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 5 percent of high school students who drove in 2023 reported driving after drinking alcohol. Another 16 percent of all high school students reported riding in a vehicle with a driver who had been drinking within the past 30 days.
Those numbers sound manageable in isolation. They’re not. When you translate them across the tens of millions of teenagers in the United States, that’s an enormous volume of impaired driving happening every single month.
The CDC’s current data on teen impaired driving risk factors is available at the CDC impaired driving risk factors page.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that in 2023, 30 percent of young drivers between the ages of 15 and 20 who were killed in crashes had blood alcohol concentrations of .01 g/dL or higher. Car crashes remain a leading cause of death for teenagers, and alcohol makes that risk dramatically worse. Teens are already less experienced behind the wheel. They make more judgment errors. They’re more easily distracted. Add alcohol to that combination, and the results are predictably devastating.
You can find NHTSA’s current drunk driving statistics at the NHTSA drunk driving statistics page.
Why Teen Drivers Are at Particular Risk
Adult drivers with a legal blood alcohol concentration of .08 percent are already considered impaired. Teen drivers are more dangerous at far lower BAC levels. Research consistently shows that teenagers face a much higher crash risk after drinking than adult drivers at the same BAC, even when their alcohol level is well below the legal limit for adults.
Several factors explain why this is true. Teen brains are still developing, particularly the regions responsible for impulse control and risk assessment. That affects how alcohol alters their behavior and their decision-making in ways that are different from what happens in an adult brain. Less experience behind the wheel compounds the problem. Driving is a skill that depends on pattern recognition and automatic responses that only develop over time. A newer driver managing a difficult situation doesn’t have those learned responses to fall back on, especially when alcohol has already slowed reaction time and distorted judgment.
Binge drinking is deeply connected to teen drunk driving, too. The CDC has found that 85 percent of high school students who reported drinking and driving in the past month also said they had engaged in binge drinking. These aren’t teenagers having a drink at a family dinner and then getting behind the wheel. They’re driving after consuming enough alcohol to impair even an experienced adult driver.
The Legal Consequences for Teen Drunk Drivers
When a teen driver causes a crash while impaired and police respond to the scene, that driver will very likely face a DUI or DWI charge. Virginia law, like the laws of every other state, sets the legal limit for drivers under 21 at a BAC of .02 percent — effectively zero tolerance. A teen doesn’t have to be fall-down drunk to face criminal charges.
Criminal penalties for a Virginia teen DWI may include fines, license suspension, community service, and, in serious cases, detention. But criminal consequences and civil liability are separate matters. Just because a teen faces — or doesn’t face — criminal charges doesn’t determine what a victim can recover in a civil claim.
One thing that’s worth knowing: don’t wait for the criminal case to resolve before taking action on a personal injury claim. The two processes run independently, and waiting can cost you time, evidence, and legal options.
What Victims Can Recover
If you or a family member was injured in a crash caused by a drunk teen driver, Virginia law gives you the right to pursue compensation for your losses. The types of damages a Virginia Beach car accident lawyer may be able to recover for you include:
- Past, present, and future medical expenses, covering everything from emergency treatment to surgeries, rehabilitation, and ongoing care
- Lost wages for the time you couldn’t work while recovering
- Future lost income if your injuries affect your long-term ability to work or earn at the same level
- Physical pain and emotional suffering caused by the crash and its aftermath
- Disfigurement and permanent disability, if those are outcomes of the injury
- Vehicle repair or replacement costs and other property damage
- Punitive damages, in cases where the at-fault driver’s conduct was particularly reckless or egregious
Wrongful death damages are also available to surviving family members when a crash fatality occurs. These may include funeral and burial expenses, loss of the deceased person’s income, and compensation for the loss of companionship and relationship that can’t be measured in dollars but can be accounted for under Virginia law.
Holding More Than Just the Driver Accountable
The teen driver who caused the crash bears primary responsibility. But depending on the circumstances, other parties may share liability as well.
Virginia recognizes a legal concept sometimes called dram shop liability. If an adult provided alcohol to the minor who then drove and caused a crash, that adult may face civil liability for the harm that followed. The same principle can apply in certain situations involving businesses or social hosts who furnished alcohol to a minor.
Parents, too, can be held responsible under specific circumstances, particularly when a vehicle was provided to a minor driver, or when a parent knew or should have known that the teen had been drinking and allowed them to drive.
These aren’t easy arguments to make, and they don’t apply in every situation. But they’re worth exploring, especially when the teen driver has limited insurance coverage, and the injuries are severe.
Virginia’s Contributory Negligence Rule
Virginia applies a contributory negligence standard in personal injury cases. Unlike most states, where partial fault reduces your recovery, Virginia’s rule means that if the defense can establish any degree of fault on your part, it can affect your ability to recover compensation. That makes it extremely important how the accident is documented, investigated, and legally framed from the very beginning.
Insurance companies representing teen drivers and their families are not neutral parties. They begin building their defense early. Having legal representation from the start protects you from the kinds of arguments that get made when one side has had more time to prepare.
A Virginia Beach Car Accident Lawyer Is Ready to Help
The Virginia Beach car accident lawyers at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp have spent decades representing people injured by negligent and impaired drivers throughout Hampton Roads and across Virginia. We know how to investigate these cases, how to build strong claims, and how to go up against insurance companies that don’t have your interests in mind.
If a drunk teen driver hurt you or someone in your family, or if you lost a loved one in a crash involving an impaired minor, the Virginia Beach car accident lawyers at our firm want to help. We offer a free consultation with a Virginia Beach car accident lawyer, and you won’t owe any legal fees unless we recover compensation for you.
Call us today at (833) 997-1774 or use our online contact form to schedule your free case review.
