Last weekend, for the fourth time, I attended the Lifesavers Conference, the annual meeting of the national traffic safety community. (This year we were in Chicago – sunny and warm!) I always learn a great deal. I am always inspired to be in the company of so many heroes – victim advocates, law enforcement, first responders, researchers, government officials, all dedicated to road safety. As you would expect, I focused mostly on the Teen Driving series of presentations, but also kept my ears peeled for insights on distracted and impaired driving.
Here are some of my takeaways from the conference:
- The organization Kids and Cars has a neat idea for making sure parents don’t leave infants and toddlers in hot cars by mistake: when an infant leaves the hospital, the family gets a teddy bear, which is to be placed in the car seat when the infant/toddler is not in the car, and put in the front seat when a baby or toddler is in the seat – a visual reminder;
- New NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind is a sleep deprivation expert, so his agency, in addition to its many existing programs, has launched a new assault on combatting “drowsy driving” (he observed, “We have a breathalyzer, but not a fatigue-alyzer”);
- Minnesota has now joined Connecticut and New Jersey in requiring parent education of teen drivers, in the sense that every driving school must offer to parents, voluntary attendance, a class on safe teen driving;
- When parents in Minnesota attend this class, one of the resources they are given is a Withdrawal of Consent Form, which they can use as leverage with their misbehaving teen by effectively revoking the teen’s license by filing the form with the DMV (brilliant!);
- 62 percent of people aged 16-35 in the U.S. have smartphones;
- If you want to promote your message through social media, the best way is to enlist a so-called You Tube Star, a celebrity with millions of followers, and get them to appear in or endorse your video;
- In some Hispanic/Latino communities and families, especially recent immigrants, traffic safety simply is not a key part of the culture, adding to the challenge of promoting safe driving (for example, educating such families about car seat installation);
- In New Jersey, the traffic safety advocates are able to attract parents and teens to the statewide “Share the Keys” safe teen driving programs because most high schools will not issue a parking permit to the student unless his/her family attends the program;
- The median spent on buying a car for a teen driver is about $5,300, and the mean is about $9,750 (remember that median means an equal number above and below, and mean is the average);
- 71 percent of teens [an absolutely frightening number] are the primary driver of a vehicle;
- For families considering buying a new or used car for a teen: bigger and heavy is better, high horsepower is bad, electronic stability control is the single most important feature to look for, and a goal should be the vehicle with the highest safety ratings; and
- The most effective in-vehicle monitoring technology gives parents a real time report about seat belt use, speed, and sudden braking or acceleration.
