While many parents may assume that late night and bad weather driving are the most hazardous times for teen drivers, there is a body of research showing that it is actually the hours directly after school lets out that are the most dangerous.  If we think about it, this makes sense.  Teens leaving school parking lots are the ones most likely to have illegal and distracting passengers; to be in a big hurry; to be headed to a destination (friend’s house, fast food restaurant, etc.) that disqualifies the trip as “purposeful” driving (see October  8, 2009 post); and possibly to be fatigued.

If this phenomenon is true, then the exit or exits from a high school’s parking lot can be regarded as a Ground Zero of safe teen driving, a place at which time and effort spent on awareness and enforcement will pay dividends in safety.  So what can schools do to use parking lots exits as a type of control point for teen drivers? 

One technique in use among many schools is signage.  Not just the familiar “Buckle Up” but signs  that convey a more pointed message.  The best I have heard about is this:  A series of large, colorful signs that the teen drivers can’t miss or ignore, that convey messages  approximately as follows:

                        –  Are you ready to drive safely?

                        –  Seat belts buckled?

                        –  No illegal passengers in your car?

                        –  Great!  See you tomorrow.

If a school’s budget does not have funds for signs like these, a PTA or even a shop class or service organization can step up.

Another technique is spot checks of cars leaving the parking lot.  This could be formal roadblock set up by police or a community relations officer, but it also could be done by a student group or PTA or parent volunteers.  The intercepting can just involve a warning to drivers who are violating the rules, especially with respect to passengers, but if the school is serious about compliance, the program can also involve writing down and reporting license plates of violators and then taking some kind of enforcement action – losing a parking sticker for period of time, losing some in-school privilege, etc..

Surveillance cameras are another option.  Many cities and towns, of course, are now installing such cameras at critical traffic locations to give drivers the message that violations will be recorded and prosecuted.  Why not school parking  lots? The danger is documented, so the cost is justified.

I recently attended a regional meeting of driving school owners at which one owner pointed out that the time when teen drivers leaving school parking lots are most likely to have illegal passengers is unexpected early dismissal days, such as when a snowstorm is approaching.  On these days, parents, guardians, and others who are responsible for transporting teens home may not be able to make it, so teens grab a ride, whether legal and safe or not, with whoever can get them home quickest.  Perhaps each school announcement about early dismissal should be accompanied by a reminder that beating a storm home is not a reason to violate safe teen driving/passenger laws.

I have written previously about two programs that schools can undertake:  posting on their websites and bulletin boards a list of teen drivers who have had their licenses long enough to legally carry non-family passengers, so parents and students know who can and cannot do so; and making sure that Permission Forms that parents sign, allowing students to transport each other, make clear what the state’s passenger rules are, and that school permission forms are not an exemption or excuse for violations.  Adding parking lot checks to these programs will provide a sound, thorough combination of steps to combat a well documented cause of teen driver crashes — illegal passengers.

Last thought:  At the Lifesavers Conference earlier this year I heard about an innovative high school exercise called Grim Reaper Day.  On a designated school day, one student, dressed in black, roams the school and taps on the shoulder the number of students that, based on teen driver fatality rates and the particular school’s population, are at risk in a given year.  Upon being tapped, those students disappear for the rest of the school day, until they are brought together in the school’s auditorium or lobby, to demonstrate the potential breadth of consequence to the school community of bad driving decisions.  The students who pulled this off at their school said it was very effective in getting the attention of their fellow students — and I have no doubt.

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