Grass-roots groups fight for safer teen driving

Series: THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE

St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg, Fla.

Dec 21, 2000; BRUCE EPSTEIN;

Abstract:
Car crashes account for approximately 6,000 deaths annually of American teens. Fifteen- to 20-year-olds account for only 6.7 percent of the total driving population, but they account for a whopping 14 percent of all fatal crashes. Up to 60 percent of fatally injured teen drivers were not wearing a seat belt, 65 percent of teen passenger deaths occur at the hands of a teen driver, about 50 percent of the crashes involving 16-year-old drivers are single- vehicle crashes, and 41 percent of fatal crashes occur at nighttime.

The crusade to reduce and prevent teen driver crashes goes on on several fronts and includes many groups. Perhaps three fronts symbolize the crusade to prevent or reduce teen driver fatalities: reduction of the legal limit for blood alcohol content, increased penalties for impaired driving and graduated licensing.

To meet this next challenge, a new initiative is taking the stage, set to take over where graduated licensing leaves off and reduce the risk associated with novice teen drivers. Dubbed the I Promise Program, it includes a parent-teen contract and a rear window decal with a clearly visible toll-free number. The decal identifies the driver as novice and invites the community to make reports, positive or critical, on driver behavior. The calls are taken by a call center, and a call report is delivered to the parent (owner) of the vehicle.

Full Text:

Copyright Times Publishing Co. Dec 21, 2000

Given that automobile crashes are the leading cause of injury and death in teens, you can pretty much say that teens drive themselves to trauma centers. And, they do this in record numbers.

Car crashes account for approximately 6,000 deaths annually of American teens. Fifteen- to 20-year-olds account for only 6.7 percent of the total driving population, but they account for a whopping 14 percent of all fatal crashes. Up to 60 percent of fatally injured teen drivers were not wearing a seat belt, 65 percent of teen passenger deaths occur at the hands of a teen driver, about 50 percent of the crashes involving 16-year-old drivers are single- vehicle crashes, and 41 percent of fatal crashes occur at nighttime.

A single jet plane crash involving a few hundred lives will make and maintain headline news for months and years, but the epidemic of teen deaths due to driver behavior is difficult to maintain on any political agenda. Rather, it is an issue that is fought in the trenches, mainly by grass-roots organizations often founded by surviving family members of crash victims.

The crusade to reduce and prevent teen driver crashes goes on on several fronts and includes many groups. Perhaps three fronts symbolize the crusade to prevent or reduce teen driver fatalities: reduction of the legal limit for blood alcohol content, increased penalties for impaired driving and graduated licensing.

Driver education has been a mainstay of the process to obtain a license. However, this has been largely unregulated with no nationally enforced standard. Notwithstanding, there has been a long- held belief that education will determine performance, and on this basis, the automobile insurance industry has generally offered premium discounts to those young drivers who attended some form of driver education.

It seems that some insurers now bemoan having ever entered into this quagmire, believing now that the evidence supporting a reduction of claims based upon attendance at driver education is slim at best. In other words, education is not enough.

Graduated licensing is the natural progression from driver education. Recognizing that new drivers need far more than information, graduated licensing recognizes that driving is a complex learned skill that can only occur with practice, over time.

With graduated licensing, new drivers must practice and master certain abilities before their driving privileges are increased. Generally, the process demands that the driver must master minimum driving skills for daytime driving on city roads before being allowed to enter specified major highways. The driver then must obtain another level of proficiency before nighttime driving is permitted.

Throughout these stages, the driver is required to have differing levels of supervision and has greater restrictions on blood alcohol content. Graduated licensing is shown to reduce car crashes in novice drivers. At some point, however, the young leave the nest and the novice driver flies solo.

From a human developmental point of view, this couldn't happen at a worse time. Most novice drivers flying solo are adolescents. Adolescence is a time of spreading wings, risk-taking and the belief in invincibility. Independence from parents is paramount, yet without resources for true independence, teens are caught in the developmental bind of relying on parental resources to paradoxically flex their own might. It is at this point in the journey where most teen injuries and deaths occur.

To meet this next challenge, a new initiative is taking the stage, set to take over where graduated licensing leaves off and reduce the risk associated with novice teen drivers. Dubbed the I Promise Program, it includes a parent-teen contract and a rear window decal with a clearly visible toll-free number. The decal identifies the driver as novice and invites the community to make reports, positive or critical, on driver behavior. The calls are taken by a call center, and a call report is delivered to the parent (owner) of the vehicle.

The contract is critical to the program's success. Parent and teen sit down and complete a nine-page document that sets out mutual expectations with respect to driving behavior, car maintenance, rewards and consequences (as negotiated).

Created by Gary Direnfeld, the program is still in development. Direnfeld, a former director of a brain injury rehabilitation program, says that to be successful, the program must reach the greatest number of novice teen drivers at the lowest cost possible. The automobile insurance industry, he says, is the most significant partner in the program's success, since it reaches every novice driver and has a vested interest in reducing the cost of claims.

The I Promise Program is garnering international attention. A Web site developed to introduce the initiative to the automobile insurance industry has letters of support posted from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Korea and Romania. In addition, the program has obtained offers from Harvard's School of Public Health and from Plan-It Safe, a program of Children's Hospital of Eastern Region in Ontario, to collaborate on research.

For more information on the I Promise Program and to view the letters of support and the contract, go to the Web site www.ipromiseprogram.com . Additional letters of support are encouraged and welcomed. Direnfeld can be contacted by e-mail to gary123@sympatico.ca or by phone at (905) 628-4847.

Bruce A. Epstein practiced pediatrics in St. Petersburg for 26 years. He edits the Web site http://www.kidsgrowth.com.

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