Showing posts with label Teen driving. Show all posts

Popular Products Discounted for Nat'l Teen Driver Safety Week

Posted by Unknown in , , , , , , , , on Friday, October 18, 2013

Next week (October 20-26) marks the 2013 observance of National Teen Driver Safety Week (NTDSW), held the third week of October each year since 2007. A legislative effort by Congressional members from Pennsylvania following several teen crashes and fatalities in that state, NTDSW is an opportunity to re-focus national attention on the devastating effects of motor vehicle crashes among teen drivers (the most collision-prone of any motorists), as well as on promising and proven strategies for saving lives.

During NTDSW 2013, we will be offering a 50 percent discount on one of our most popular educational product bundles: Driver-ZED and Teaching Your Teens to Drive.

Driver-ZED (Stock #114) is an interactive risk-management computer program that uses live-action footage to put teens in the driver's seat as they confront 100 scenarios and learn to properly respond to the hazards in each (such as work zone construction, an aggressive tailgater, etc.) Teaching Your Teens to Drive (Stock #351) uses a lesson handbook and DVD to guide families (parents/guardians and their teens) through the complicated process of learning to drive.

From today (October 18) through October 26, customers may purchase Driver-ZED and Teaching Your Teens to Drive together for $19.95 (ordinarily bundled at $39.95). The bundle stock number for obtaining both products is 119. Use promo code "TeenBundle" when ordering online, or when calling our fulfillment center, at 800.305.7233.

Each product can also be ordered separately at a discount: to get Driver-ZED for $7, use promo code "TeenZED." For a copy of Teaching Your Teens to Drive, use promo code "TeenTeaching" to get the special $12.95 price. Each product is ordinarily priced at $29.95.

This year's NTDSW theme is "It Takes Two," referring to the crucial roles played by both parents AND teens in the learning-to-drive process. Parental involvement during this period in their sons' and daughters' lives is something we've explored several times, most recently in our series of naturalistic studies of novice driving. Parents and guardians have a wealth of safe driving wisdom that they can share with the young drivers in their families, and they can play an active role in managing their teens' driving. To learn more about our work in this area, please visit www.traffic-payout.org.







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License to Wait

Posted by Unknown in , , , , , , , on Thursday, August 1, 2013

If you were anything like me as a teenager, you’ll likely be as surprised as I was by the findings of our latest study, just released today. When I was 16, getting my driver’s license was my top priority, and I still remember thinking that a winter storm that postponed my road test by six weeks was absolutely devastating. But a new AAA Foundation survey of 18- 20-year-olds has found that less than half (just 44%) of American teens get their license within a year of their home state’s age of eligibility, and barely half (54%) get it by the time they turn 18!


The study offers evidence supporting a general perception that teens have been voluntarily delaying licensure in recent years; it also examines what some of the reasons for this delay might be. With graduated driver licensing (GDL) systems now placing some combination of driving restrictions (such as passenger limits, late-night prohibitions, etc.) on teens in all states, a big question was whether young drivers simply wanted to wait to get their license until these provisions were lifted (generally age 18, except in New Jersey). In other words, are the three tiers of GDL (learner’s permit, restricted license, full licensure) so undesirable that teens are willing to avoid it?

It turns out that the reasons for delayed licensure generally pertain more to economic considerations, busy schedules, and simple lack of interest. In fact, the biggest reasons cited for not getting a license were not having a car (44%), an ability to get around without driving (39%), cost of gas and cost overall (36% each), and “just didn’t get around to it” (35%). Fewer than one in four cited reasons related to GDL.

Even if GDL isn’t the reason for the delay, however, it is troubling that more than a third (at least 36%) of novice drivers today get licensed outside of the protective GDL system because of the delay. A recent Foundation literature review highlighted the lifesaving achievements of graduated licensing, which has been credited with reductions of 20-40 percent in 16-year-old driver crashes, and a 6-19 percent drop in crashes of 17-year-old drivers. Yet with the three-tiered system generally “expiring” once a teen turns 18, license delay for any reason can result in a significant number of novices missing out on this highly effective system.

More research is clearly needed to investigate the effects that GDL might have on older novice driver (ages 18-20, e.g.) safety, and to examine how the age at which a teen gets licensed impacts crash rates. To this end, we’ve initiated a project to study the crash rates of teens by age at licensure in three states: North Carolina and California, which do not have comprehensive GDL for older novices, and New Jersey, which does. You can read more about this project here.

Summer is the deadliest season for teens on the road, so this is a particularly poignant time to consider the results of this study. To learn more about it, please visit the project page. And, as always, please continue to drive safely all summer long.       

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Teens and Distraction: Part 2- Electronics and Passengers

Posted by Unknown in , , , , , on Wednesday, March 28, 2012


In Part 1 of our “Teens and Distraction” blog, we discussed how gender played a role in some of the distractions observed. In part 2, we’ll focus on other teen distractions found, such as use of electronics, driving with passengers and horseplay.

Electronic Devices

Using electronic devices accounted for nearly one third of all the incidences of distracted driving observed in the study. Other frequent distractions included adjusting vehicle controls, personal grooming, and eating or drinking.

Researchers spotted or suspected the teens of using electronic devices in 7% of the video clips where the vehicles registered a g-force event, such as sudden braking or swerving. Teens were twice as likely to text or type on their electronic devices than they were to make handheld calls. Recent reports suggest teens send between 3,000 to 4,000 texts per month, so it's not surprising to see this behavior taking place, but it underscores how critical it is for teens to put down their devices and pay attention to driving.

Drivers in the study using electronic devices look away from the road more frequently and longer than drivers engaging in other distracting behaviors. On average, they looked away a full second longer – long enough to travel the length of a basketball court!

Passengers, Loud Conversations & Horseplay

Driving with passengers was also found to influence driver behavior. Distracting teen activities significantly decreased when parents or other adults were present in the car. In contrast, loud conversation and horseplay were more than twice as likely to occur when multiple teens – instead of just one – were present. These distractions are particularly concerning, as they are associated with the occurrence of crashes, other serious incidents (such as leaving the roadway), and high g-force events. Drivers were six times more likely to have a serious incident when there was loud conversation in the vehicle, and were more than twice as likely to have a high g-force event when there was horseplay.

More information from this study, including a press release and fact sheet can be found here.

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Skidding through the Learning Curve

Posted by Unknown in , , , , , , , on Wednesday, March 7, 2012


“Practice makes perfect,” right? Well when it comes to driving, it may not equal perfection, but it certainly helps. In fact, inexperience is one of the major reasons that teenagers have crash rates that are roughly four times higher than those of other drivers.

To address this, the AAA Foundation has been talking a lot lately about the importance of giving teens ample opportunity to practice their driving. The message has become even more urgent due to recent Foundation research that found that teens are not getting as much supervised driving practice with their parents as previously assumed, and that when they do practice, it tends to be along familiar routes on sunny days, rather than under the range of conditions motorists will face throughout their driving careers.

That teens need more – and more varied – driving practice is undeniable. I’d like to take this opportunity, however, to touch on a somewhat related issue that remains a bit more controversial. Across the country, interest is growing in so-called “supplementary” training programs for new drivers, which generally pick up where traditional, basic driver education courses leave off and teach more advanced skills like skid recovery, evasive maneuvering, and threshold braking. The hope, of course, is that students will learn skills that they can use to prevent crashes and escape emergencies.

The fear, however – suggested by the limited research conducted to date – is that such advanced training may breed overconfidence in inexperienced drivers that is not matched by their true skill level. There is also a concern that young drivers will apply the techniques they learn for thrills when driving, which would negate any gains in safety.

A study prepared for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – which the AAA Foundation summarized and analyzed in a report released this week – found that most providers of these supplementary training programs indicate that improving safety is among their chief objectives, and is one of the most common reasons that parents enroll their teens. As we highlighted in our report, however, more research into the impact that these programs have on teen driving is sorely needed before any claims about their safety implications can be substantiated.

In the meantime, there is much that parents and guardians can be doing to give their teens the kinds of opportunities to practice what we know are beneficial. For example, as one of our recent reports on teen crashes found, young drivers improve relatively quickly at making left turns, entering roadways, and yielding properly, among other things, but they need practice to do so. The more experience they can get with such techniques while supervised, the less they may have to learn when they’re driving on their own.

With traffic crashes still the leading killer of American teens, it’s vital that we all do our part to keep young drivers safe on the road. When we’re teaching our teens how to drive, let’s be sure to help them steer safely through the learning curve without over-correcting.

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