by Tom Parsons

Created on: April 20, 2009

It was scary. Every time I stood in front of them, something inside me shivered. It was not a lack of confidence on my part; I had stood in front of groups of people as teacher most of my adult life. What scared me was the knowledge that I was helping people to do perhaps the most dangerous thing they would ever do in their lives.

I was teaching teen agers how to drive so they could get their licenses. In the ten years I taught Drivers Education courses in Columbus, Ohio, I helped put an estimated 5,000 teen drivers on the roads of Franklin County. In spite of my efforts to teach them how to drive safely and defensively, I know many of them did not learn from my instruction, but rather chose to learn from their own experience, which all too often involved accidents, some of them causing serious injury or someone's death.

Statistics used in developing the lessons I taught consistently cited three very common factors in teen driver deaths. Several independent studies all placed these three factors as the most common factors found in examining the details of fatal accidents that involved a teen driver.

Drugs and alcohol were factors in a number of the fatal accidents, but neither drugs nor alcohol were in the top three. Not all teens use drugs or drink alcohol. But all teens who drive are at risk of dying in an automobile accident that will very likely include one, if not all, of these three factors.

The third most common factor is the tendency for teen drivers to show off, especially males aged 16 when there is another male of the same age in the car. This showing off causes the teen driver to take irresponsible chances he would likely not take if there were not someone present to be impressed by his assumed skills. Although more common among males, female teen drivers also can be lured by the desire to impress other teens with their skills. The really dangerous thing about this is that it is more common among very young drivers, mostly 16-year-olds, the very drivers who have very little skill because they have just begun to drive.

Distracted driving is the second most common factor in teen fatal accidents. Teens driving in traffic while texting messages, or dialing their cell phones, or changing CDs or tuning the radio all reduce the focus of the driver on the serious task of guiding the car safely through the traffic-filled mazes that are our streets and highways. Lively conversations with passengers also are distracting. Distracted drivers miss important information

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