New research reveals 60 percent of teen crashes involve distraction behind the wheel. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has issued a follow up study as the summer driving season moves forward. Experts recommend parents should talk to their teens early about distracted driving.
“It starts Memorial Day weekend and it goes through Labor Day.”
Sue Falletich is the Manager for Michigan Driver Training with AAA Michigan. The time period she’s referring to is the stretch AAA refers to where more accidents occur involving teen drivers. Their studies show over the past five years more than five thousand people have been killed in crashes involving teen drivers during that time period.
“And the reason for that is, studies discovered, kids are out of school at that time and they have more opportunity to be driving and being out on the road than they do when school is in session.”
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s follow up study confirms that nearly 60-percent of teen crashes involved distractions behind the wheel. Their report found consistent trends in the top three distractions for teens when behind the wheel in the moments leading up to a crash.
“Just having another passenger in the vehicle, listening to another passenger while you’re driving makes up 15% of the accidents just by having another passenger in the car. And then of course, talking and texting or operating a cell phone attributes to 12 percent of the crashes and just attending to someone else or looking at something inside or outside the vehicles attributes to 11 percent of the crashes.”
Falletich says to help combat distractions, know the rules. She says it’s against the law for new drivers on level one or two drivers’ license to use cell phones while driving.
“But I think first and foremost, it starts at home, the parents need to start having conversations with their teen early about driving and using their cell phones and how dangerous it is.”
Falletich says in addition to talking to your teen drivers, parents can make a parent-teen driving agreement that sets family rules against distracted driving and she re-emphasizes, parents should definitely lead by example.
For more information and helpful tools, you can go to TeenDriving.AAA.com
