The new school year means more traffic on the roads and more teens driving themselves to school.
To educate teens on driving distractions, the Brentwood Library is offering a Distracted Driving for Teens class on Tuesday, August 2, from 1 – 2:30 pm. The class is interactive, uses popular culture to talk about not only driving but cellphone addictions and why our brains can’t do both at the same time.
According to AAA, nearly 60 percent of teen crashes involve distractions behind the wheel. The research also finds a disturbing trend showing that texting and social media use are on the rise amongst teen drivers.
The latest report compared new crash videos with those captured from 2007 -2012 and found consistent trends in the top three distractions for teens when behind the wheel in the moments leading up to a crash:
- Talking or attending to other passengers in the vehicle: 15 percent of crashes
- Talking, texting or operating a cell phone: 12 percent of crashes
- Attending to or looking at something inside the vehicle: 11 percent of crashes
Research by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that texting creates a crash risk 23 times worse than driving while not distracted. A recent AAA Foundation survey shows that nearly 50 percent of teen drivers admitted they had read a text message or email while driving in the past 30 days. NHTSA’s National Occupant Protection Use Survey also shows that from 2007 to 2014, the percentage of young drivers seen visibly manipulating a hand-held device quadrupled.
“Nearly two-thirds of people injured or killed in crashes involving a teen driver are people other than the teen themselves,” continues Ryan. “This shows that teen drivers can be a risk to everyone on the road and it is important to regulate their actions when behind the wheel.”
Brentwood Library class is open to all teens 14 and up are welcome, regardless of Brentwood Library membership. Use the link to register here.
[scroller style=”sc1″ title=”More Brentwood News ” title_size=”17″ display=”cats” cats=”74″ number_of_posts=”8″ speed=”5000″]
