No driver safety problem plagues us more than this one. Too many young drivers are dying. In spite of the safety advances of the last few decades -- seatbelts, airbags, improved crash standards -- teen driver death rates remain unacceptably high.

What can be done?

We've decided to explore this issue in a series of articles aimed at uncovering the myths and mistakes of the new driver experience. We find no automotive-related topic more pressing, no need more urgent. We intend to lay it bare, folks, to get at the root of this problem.

The teen driving crisis goes beyond our interest in accident rates and fatalities and runs to the very core of American identity. Since the post-World War II boom, we've flooded our freeways with metal, crowded them with chrome. Mobility -- that magic elixir of freedom, spiked with gasoline, peppered with burnt rubber -- defines Americans not only to ourselves but to the rest of the world.

As automotive journalists -- more than that, though, as human beings who love the smell of cars, the look of cars, the idea of cars -- we feel duty-bound to confront this issue. Further, as drivers who likely caught the germ as we entered our teen years (some of us much earlier), and as parents whose children have now begun to drive, we bear a responsibility to our families and communities.

It is in those communities, in those families, that the phone call comes one night, against all logic and all hope: a child has died behind the wheel of a car. In smaller communities, an officer might come to the house, hat in hand, knocking on the screen door on an otherwise peaceful evening.

This call frequently occurs in several homes at the same time, for young drivers increasingly die in groups.

Case in point: A couple of years ago, in a suburb of Los Angeles not far from our editorial offices, an entourage of several cars loaded with young people bolted down the Antelope (14) Freeway. The 14 runs north-south, a main commuter artery connecting the upper desert communities of Palmdale and Lancaster to Los Angeles. Anyone who has driven this freeway knows to watch their downhill speed when traveling southward, not just for law enforcement concerns but to keep their velocity in check. These students apparently didn't.

They were on their way to an amusement park, dodging in and out of traffic, driving recklessly. Several of the passengers had neglected to attach their seatbelts. One of the cars lost control and rolled off the freeway. Five young people died.

Statistics are a good place to start, since they give us a picture of what's happening. We've included a few sobering facts below from NHTSA. We tried to pare down this list, but they all seemed so important that we've included them all.

• Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for American teenagers.
• In 2001, 5,341 teens were killed in passenger vehicles involved in motor vehicle crashes. Two thirds of those killed were not buckled up.
• When driver fatality rates are calculated on the basis of estimated annual travel, teen drivers (16 to 19 years old) have a fatality rate that is about four times higher than the fatality rate among drivers 25 through 69 years old.
• In 2001, 3,608 drivers 15 to 20 years old were killed in motor vehicle crashes, and an additional 337,000 were injured.
• Young drivers (16-20) were involved in 7,598 fatal crashes in 2001.
• In the last decade, over 68,000 teens have died in car crashes.
• Sixty-five percent of teen passenger deaths occur when another teenager is driving.
• In 2001, 26% of fatally injured teen drivers (16-20 years old) had high blood alcohol concentrations (0.08 percent or more), even though all were under the minimum legal drinking age and are not legally permitted to purchase alcohol.
• Two out of three teenagers killed in motor vehicle crashes are males.