I was privileged last month to attend the Lifesavers Conference, the annual national meeting of the traffic safety community. The meeting (this year, the 28th Annual) draws federal, state, and local public safety officials, law enforcement, hospital and emergency medical services, insurance companies, teachers, academics/researchers, and a few parents. Herewith, information I gleaned that is of interest to parents of teen drivers:
- The good news: Even though there are more cars on the road and people are driving more miles than ever before, preliminary statistics show that there were fewer fatalities on American roads in 2009, just under 34,000, than in any year since 1954, and fatality rates for teens are down approximately 22 percent from 2005. Stricter teen driver laws are working.
- On the other hand, in this economy, cars are getting smaller, and occupants of smaller cars are at greater risk. In addition, some caught in the economic downturn have figured that it’s less expensive to travel by motorcycle than car, and as a result, motorcycle accidents are increasing rapidly. Motorcyclists are 35 times more likely to be injured than occupants of a car.
- The big question for government officials and researchers about the recent progress in fatality rates is how much is attributable to stricter laws and enforcement, and how much results from large increases in the price of gas, and from the economic recession. Simply put, millions of people are driving fewer miles because they cannot afford to do so. Particularly, when economic times are tough, it’s recreational driving, as opposed to driving to work, school, or shopping (“purposeful” driving) , that declines. More accidents occur in recreational driving. The question thus becomes, if the economy improves, if the price of gas moderates, or even if car manufacturers introduce much more fuel efficient cars, will vehicle miles traveled increase again, and with them crashes?
- For teen drivers, the experts seem to agree that the best combination for state teen driver laws is a long learner’s permit phase, both in terms of hours behind the wheel (more than 100) and length of time (6 to 12 months); licensing as late as possible (17 or older); and no night driving and no peer-group passengers for the first year of licensure.
- At the Conference, one parenting expert laid out four styles of parenting: uninvolved, permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative. He explained that authoritative – firm rules, and parent oversight rooted in safety and awareness of danger, not power or control – is the goal.
- One speaker suggested that teen drivers should have to ask for the car keys every time they get behind the wheel, even if they are the primary driver of the car. This step builds in a filter, a pause button for parent and teen to review whether it is safe to drive at that particular moment, to review any portion of a teen driver contract that might be implicated at the moment, to establish a mutual understanding of planned route, purpose, arrival time, and passengers. Good idea!
- Other interesting items:
- The federal STANDUP Act will be introduced soon in the U.S. Senate (which it was on April 28)
- Rumble strips – those indentations in the asphalt that make a startling noise when a driver drifts off the side of a road – are very effective.
- Aside from changes in technology inside cars such as dashboard-mounted computer screens, the next wave in traffic safety will be crash avoidance, which includes car-to-car sensors, and road-to-car sensors that keep cars in lane or warn them of objects ahead.
- The vast majority of traffic fatalities in our country do not occur on Interstate highways but rural, two-lane roads.
- NHTSA now maps traffic fatalities nationally; the map is on its website, www.nhtsa.gov.
- One simple reason that texting is so dangerous: Avoiding a crash takes about three seconds: one second to identify the risk, one second to react, and one second to start the braking or evasive maneuver process. But the average text message requires the sender to look at the screen for at least five seconds. Thus, texting eliminates reaction time to circumstances that cause crashes.
- At the conference, students from high schools in Minnesota, Florida, and New York spoke about a peer-education program for teen drivers called Act Out Loud. Allstate is a sponsor. One of the kids described an intra-school exercise in which one student was appointed The Grim Reaper for the day. This Reaper roamed throughout the school, tapping on the shoulder the appropriate number of students who die each year in that state in driving accidents. The students tapped “disappear” – they are forbidden from speaking to anyone for the rest of the day. At the end of school, the “dead” students assemble at the school’s front entrance, to demonstrate the magnitude of annual loss of teen drivers. Very effective, I thought.
- Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has launched a fabulous, comprehensive safe teen driving website. I’ve navigated it several times, and highly recommend it.
Not bad for a three-day conference.
