Why are so many more young people dying behind the wheel?

I can't prove any of this. However, it is logical with what I know about psychology and the human mind that today's kids have been conditioned completely differently in almost every way than my generation was. The first thing that occurs to me is that a person's subconscious mind cannot really tell the difference between a computer game and reality. So, for example, someone might play a computer driving game and expect subconsciously to have more than one life. So, when they get behind the driving wheel of a car their brain might be thinking, "If I die I will have 5 or 10 more lives". But this is not in reality. Also, this isn't something someone would be thinking consciously at all. It would be a part of the conditioning received from playing computer games growing up.

Also, many young people don't go outside and play where they live because either it isn't safe where they are or they have asthma or are allergic to pollens and the like. So, maybe they didn't ride their bikes or skateboards much or at all growing up. Without the experience of bloodying yourself by hitting something on your bike or falling down and off your skateboard many times, there isn't enough fear in someone to be a safe enough driver. There aren't enough "Memories of extreme physical pain associated with crashing". So, as a result there isn't enough adrenalin necessarily in this kind of person to actually be able to save their own lives in an emergency.

Since I started driving by myself or with friends at age 16 in 1964 and bought my first car one month later, I have many many near death experiences while driving a car, truck, motorcycle or bicycle all my life. But all the time spend from age 5 riding my bicycle around people, other bicycles and cars gave me enough fear to survive almost anything because I was always lucky to have excellent reflexes. But someone who did not go out on bicycles every day or on a skateboard every day might not have the necessary fear or reflexes to be able to survive all the things I have because of growing up with all those experiences.

I can remember instances where I was the only car left unscathed on the freeways in Los Angeles in my then new 1968 Camaro and this was only because a sports car like that can do things at high speed with the right driver that no other type of car could then. So, when people started crashing into each other ahead of me, I just went into the left emergency lane at 70 mph which was the speed of traffic and was the only car left unscathed and un-destroyed as a result. The other 20 or more cars around me were all destroyed in front of and behind me in the fast lane. Unless someone had both the right car and the right reflexes they would have been dead. That is the problem for young people today. Likely they have the wrong car or undeveloped reflexes for surviving in today's world while driving. Also, you can be the best driver in the world but if you are not a defensive driver also, you are still just as dead.