You might be surprised at how ignorant teen drivers are about issues such as seat belt use, speeding, and distracted driving...its a wonder more teens don't die every day....


Source: NHTSA
 

Safety Belts Teen participants in all four cities were aware of the Click It or Ticket campaign. As a result, fear of enforcement was the only reason some could offer for wearing a safety belt. Many reported that they only would put their safety belts on when they saw a police officer. Consideration should be given to capitalizing on this awareness to increase the perception of risk of enforcement as a way of increasing belt use.   Teen participants are particularly gullible when it comes to urban legends. They all can recite the stories they have heard about people being decapitated by their safety belts, being horribly burned by their air bags, or walking away from a crash when they were ejected from their vehicle. They need more factual information about what really happens in a crash and why being belted is a good idea. To be believed, however, this information may need to be disseminated as a new urban legend on the Internet. Some social marketing research should be conducted into how urban legends are generated and disseminated.   Teen participants know what the law is and they know that they are only required to buckle up in the front seat. They do not know that it is dangerous to ride unbelted in the back seat. When the facilitator provided some information about the risks of riding in the back seat without a belt, several teens were surprised. Consideration should be given to a campaign to educate teens about buckling up in the back seat. Parents should be encouraged to be as insistent about buckling up in the back seat as they are about the front seat. These messages should begin at an early age and continue through adolescence.   The teen participants who reported always being buckled up, front seat or back, did so because it was an ingrained habit, not because it was the safest thing to do. They credit their parents with instilling this habit. It is important to encourage more parents to stress the importance of buckling up in the back seat as well as the front. Speeding and Aggressive Driving Teens “feel the need to speed,” to borrow a popular quote from the movie Top Gun. They do not consider driving 5 or 10 miles above the speed limit to be dangerous. Rather, it is perceived as just keeping up with traffic, which many were advised to do in Driver’s Ed. Teen participants report that they ignore antispeeding campaigns and enforcement efforts that target this low level of speeding because they see no danger. But they need information about the very real risks of extreme speeding (speeds over 100 mph), which is very alluring to teens. Focus groups indicate they may need facts to counter the effects of popular films like The Fast and the Furious.   Many young male participants complain about other drivers who fail to signal their lane changes or who drive in the left lane, because they make it difficult to swerve from lane to lane at very high speeds. The young male participants believe that they are totally focused on the road ahead and can anticipate every action, thereby minimizing the risk of collision. They do not see their driving as being aggressive, just highly skilled. Steps must be taken to educate these young men about reaction times and the laws of physics. Distracted Driving Focus groups suggest that teen participants do not seem to see the relationship between the numerous things that distract them in their cars and their high rate of minor fender-bender-type crashes. A high percentage of the crashes reported by the teens involved rear-ending a car that had stopped while the teen driver was looking away from the road. If teens cannot be dissuaded from multitasking while driving, perhaps they should be encouraged to increase their following distance to provide a longer buffer zone.   Focus groups indicate that teen drivers need to be empowered to impose some rules on their passengers. They all recognize the risks caused by lots of passengers: tickling them, covering their eyes, shouting out directions, and egging them on to do stupid things. However, they do not seem to have the confidence or strategies for keeping their passengers under control.   Cell phones are not perceived as a serious risk by most teen participants, yet they complain about other drivers who do stupid things while talking on their cell phones. They do not seem to connect the many close calls that they have had while driving when using their cell phones. They need to be reminded what conditions make it too risky to answer or make a call. Consideration should be given to distributing hands-free sets at no cost, similar to earlier programs to give out free bicycle helmets as a way to jumpstart helmet use.   Focus groups suggest that music plays a huge part in a teenager’s life, especially when they are driving. The prospect of a long or short trip with no music is almost intolerable. Yet teen participants acknowledge that adjusting the radio or switching CDs causes them to look away from the road and that crashes can occur in those milliseconds of inattention. Focus groups indicate that teens may need some suggestions on how to accommodate their passion for music while maintaining their focus on the road.   One strategy for training teen participants to deal with distractions might include developing visualizations of what might happen when someone tries to answer a cell phone, searches for a new CD, or spills ketchup on his lap. These could be developed as Flash animations that can be run on various Web sites such as Hotmail or Yahoo. While the boys said they never click on links on these pages, they also indicated that they are always looking for something cool.