Fatal car crashes involving teenage drivers in the U.S. dropped 36 percent as states required more training and seat-belt use rose, a government report said. Fatal accidents with a 16- or 17-year-old at the wheel fell to 1,437 in 2008, from 2,230 four years earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today in the Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report. During the five years, 11,019 people died in the wrecks, with the teen drivers themselves making up more than a third of the toll.

While the adolescents’ fatal crashes have been declining since at least 1990, auto accidents remain the leading cause of death in the age group, the Atlanta-based CDC said. For every mile on the road, teen drivers are four times more likely to have a wreck than older drivers, said Ruth Shults, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Seat-belt laws and training mandates are reducing the risk, she said.

“We’ve seen a pretty steady decline,” Shults said in a telephone interview. “But when teens first start to drive is still a very dangerous time for them.” Read full story in Bloomberg.