In Honor of National Teen Driver Safety Week, AAA Offers 10 Safety Tips 

Phoenix, Ariz., October 11 , 2007 – The United States Congress has proclaimed October 15 – 20 as National Teen Driver Safety Week, an important time for parents to stress to teenagers the inherent dangers that come along with driving and how to be safe, responsible motorists.

“Across the state and nation, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for young drivers,” said Linda Gorman, public affairs manager for AAA Arizona. “In fact, traffic crashes kill more teens each year than suicides, drugs, alcohol and homicides combined.”

To help families start a dialog, AAA has created a list of ten things parents can do to help keep their teen drivers safe all year long:

Ten Things Parents Can Do To Keep Their Teen Driver Safe

1.   Know and understand their teens – Not all teens are ready to drive at the same age. Teenagers mature and become responsible at varying rates. Parents need to gauge this as they determine when their teen is ready to drive.

2.   Be a positive and responsible role model –Research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that, when using the number of collisions and traffic tickets as criteria, the parents of teens involved in crashes were more likely to have poor driving records than the parents of collision-free teens.

3.   Choose a quality driving school – Driving is a risky activity for teens and warrants professional instruction. Driving schools that feature cutting-edge curriculums, high degrees of interaction and professionally trained instructors are suggested. Parents should select a quality driving school for their teens’ driver training. AAA Arizona’s Approved Driving School Network recommends high-quality driving schools in the surrounding area.

4.   Practice might not make perfect, but it can make for better teen drivers – As an important supplement to formal driver education, supervised driving sessions with parents provide teens with opportunities to enhance learning, reinforce proper driving techniques and skills and receive constructive feedback from the people that care most about their safety and success. To assist parents in these efforts, AAA offers Teaching Your Teens To Drive, a parent coaching program containing everything a parent needs to conduct supervised driving and more. Learn more at www.AAAAZ.com/news and click on Driver Training.

5.   Keep teen drivers free of teen passengers and off the road at night – Extensive research indicates that a teen driver’s chances of crashing increase exponentially with each additional teen passenger. Research has also shown that crash rates spike at night.

6.   Encourage teens to get enough sleep – Teens need about nine hours of sleep every night, but most get far less. A lack of sleep can negatively affect vision, hand-eye coordination, reaction time and judgment.

7.   Eliminate the distractions –With surveys reporting widespread use of distracting technology by teen drivers, more than one-third of states have recently banned cell phone use by new teen drivers. In fact, Phoenix recently enacted a ban on text messaging while driving.

8.   Create a parent-teen driving agreement – Having rules, conditions, restrictions and consequences of teens’ driving written down in advance establishes driving as a privilege, and not something to be taken lightly or for granted. Parents should look to state graduated driver licensing programs as the minimum they should be enforcing. Parents should establish rules and consequences that they and their teens agree upon that extend beyond state laws. AAA offers parent-teen driving agreements at www.AAAAZ.com/news/drivertraining.

9.   Set a time each week for discussion and review – Parental involvement and communication is critical in the prevention of teen-related crashes, injuries and fatalities. Designate a time each week to address concerns (both parent and teen), review the teen’s driving performance and chart the progression towards established goals and benchmarks.

10.  Make smart vehicle choices for teens – As the family member most likely to crash, a teen should drive the safest vehicle the family owns. Things to consider are vehicle type (sedans are generally safer than sports cars, SUVs and pickup trucks), size (larger vehicles fare better in crashes than smaller vehicles) and safety technology (front and side air bags, anti-lock brakes and stability control systems).

Families can also sign up for AAA Arizona’s “Dare to Prepare” workshop. This program provides parents and their teens with critical information they will need to know before teens take the wheel, and will explain the steps to obtain a permit and a driver’s license in the state of Arizona. The program is free. Workshops take place from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at AAA Headquarters located at 3144 North 7th Avenue in Phoenix. For upcoming dates and to register, call 602.650.2736. For information on Tucson classes, call 520.419.2714.

AAA Arizona, the Arizona affiliate of AAA, provides automotive, insurance and auto travel services to nearly 750,000 Arizona members.  Annually, AAA’s Emergency Road Service responds to more than 450,000 calls for help on the streets and highways of the state as well as providing insurance, travel, and financial services to AAA members and motorists.  Since its founding in 1927, AAA Arizona has been a leading advocate for the safety and security of all travelers.