First responders staged a mock traffic accident at Mars High School to teach students of the dangers of drinking and driving. Crashes involving teen drivers increase significantly in the summer.

Memorial Day isn't just the unofficial start of summer.

AAA says the holiday is also the start of a darker period: the “100 Deadliest Days” for teenage drivers where speeding, distraction and impaired driving cause highway death rates to spike.

According to AAA, over the past five years, nearly 3,500 people have been killed in crashes involving teen drivers nationwide during the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day, when the number of crash fatalities involving a teen driver historically rise.

New crash data from 2013-17 reveals major factors contributing to fatal teen crashes during the summer driving period include:

Speeding (28 percent)

Impaired driving (17 percent)

Distraction (9 percent)

“At AAA we are looked at as a towing company,” said Jim Garrity, public and legislative affairs manager for AAA East Central that covers 87 AAA offices in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.

“But we are also road safety advocates. And we see providing information to parents and teens as a safety issue,” said Garrity.

This is an excerpt from a story in Sunday's Butler Eagle.