AAA Study: Teenage Driving Safety Starts At Home

By Grant Law Office on October 31, 2011

A study by the AAA Automobile Club, under their Foundation for Traffic Safety initiative, found that teenage drivers were significantly more susceptible to accidents than those on the road with more experience. As reported by the Delaware County Daily Times, teenagers who are driving by themselves during their first month on the road were observed to be 50 percent more probable to be involved in a crash, as compared to those driving with a year of experience under their belts. And the trend continues exponentially, as those first month drivers were almost two times as likely to have a car accident than those who had been driving for two years time.

In the research, teenagers had particular problems with decreasing speed properly, distracted driving, and neglecting to yield. Those kinds of situations produced errors that caused 57 percent of crashes observed in the research. The data also confirmed that the occurrence of specific kinds of crashes (such as accidents resulting from left hand turns) dropped in relation to driver experience.

New legislation is putting further restrictions on teenage drivers to ensure their safety, including efforts to limit the number of non-family passengers in a car for new drivers during their initial six months on the road, boosting the necessary hours of experience to obtain a license, and by increasing the severity of seat belt infractions. However, as part of the study, AAA advised parents to take the primary action in teaching teens how to drive safely. Parents should place their own restrictions on when and where a new driver can take the vehicle and who can and cannot ride in the car as a passenger during the initial period. If you or a family member has been injured in a car accident, contact the car accident attorneys in Georgia at the Law Offices of Wayne Grant, P.C. Please call (404) 995-3955 for a complimentary consultation.