A recent article in The New York Times about teen driving (“New Lessons To Pave a Road to Safety,” Monday April 9, page D5), to which I will respond in my next post (because it says some things with which I disagree), describes a recent report into Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine that I thought I should pass along.

In an early post on this blog, I discussed the differences between purposeful and recreational driving. I pointed out that, in general, when teens have a destination, a timetable, a defined route, and a consequence for not arriving on time — driving to school into morning, for example - crash rates are lower. This is a well-documented fact, but this new report in the Journal points out that parents also need to bear in mind fatigue, and one of the factors in sleep deprivation is when a teen’s high school opens its doors in the morning.

The Journal’s study compared crash rates for teens at two high schools in Virginia, one in Virginia Beach and one in the neighboring town of Chesapeake. The Virginia Beach school starts at 7:20 a.m., while the other school begins at 8:30 a.m.. Guess what: the crash rate for the earlier- starting school was 41 percent higher. The authors were quick to say that the starting time could not explain all of the difference, but they also discounted other potential explanations such as traffic conditions in the area surrounding the school. So, the study seems to deliver a lesson that, like many aspects of parenting of teen drivers, seems to be obvious yet lies just below the surface of consciousness for many parents: whether your teen is driving fatigued to school depends in part on how early the school day starts.

I will not argue that this study, by itself, is proof that school should start later. This topic has been thoroughly researched and debated, because it is well know that the biorhythms of teenagers are different from those of adults. They need more sleep, and they don’t wake up until what adults would consider midmorning. I think this new sleep/crash study is just more evidence that parent supervision of teens requires a close watch of sleep and sleep deprivation, and shows that there are two parts to the equation: when the teen goes to sleep, and when they have to get up to go to school. And let us not forget about sports or activities that occur before school.

A good lesson to keep in mind as millions on the East Coast of the U.S. are about to get up at 4 a.m. to watch the royal wedding.

We have been reading recently about air traffic controllers falling asleep on the job. Thinking of teen drivers as pilots and parents as air traffic controllers is not a bad analogy, actually. Parents should consider every time their teen proposes to get behind the wheel as the equivalent of a pilot wanting to fly a plane. Teens should be required to “file a flight plan” and get permission from the tower — you -before taking off.

I am not a pilot, but as I understand it, the elements of a flight plan include:

• destination - where exactly are you going (pilots don’t estimate - they need precision)?
• route - what directions will get you there, and are there any safety concerns associated with any of them?
• time of day - when are you leaving, and are there any safety issues associated with your timetable (for example, night driving)?
• equipment readiness - is there sufficient fuel, and is your equipment maintained and safe?
• communications plan - when and how will you report in when you arrive at tour destination, report a problem or delay, and report when you are about to return home?
• passengers - who will be with you, where will they sit, and how will you ensure that they don’t distract you?
• contingency plan — what will be your alternate route if the intended one is blocked or otherwise not available?
• departure time, route, timetable, and passengers (same considerations as the first leg of the flight)
• are you ready to undertake this responsibility? Well rested and alert?

Only when each of these items has been satisfactorily planned should your teen be cleared for departure.

Does this sound silly? Overkill? If you think so, I respectfully suggest that you return to the dangers of teen driving. The risks of an unprepared pilot flying are not unlike those facing a teen driver. The margin for error is very small, and the risks are enormous.

A significant benefit of thinking of teen driving like a pilot’s flight plan is that it should help you and your teen focus on the difference between purposeful driving and joyriding. Pilots don’t take joyrides, in the sense that they don’t fly a plane “just to go hang out with friends.” Even when flying is recreational, a pilot prepares and files a plan.

Will this routine feel a bit less necessary when your teen is on his or her one hundredth “flight” and has gotten the checklist down quite well? Yes. When you and your teen have spent perhaps a year in this mode, taking every driving episode so seriously that each of the steps listed above becomes automatic, will you need to maintain this level of detail? Probably not. There will come a time when it will not be as critical to be as deliberate and mechanical as suggested above. But the likelihood that your teens will get to this later stage will be substantially increased if, as they begin to drive, you work with them to treat every situation like a pilot flying a plane, and your supervision resembles that of a certified flight controller - one who is awake on the job at all times.

Did you take it? How did you do? Here are my answers:

1. In general, distracted driving means hands off the wheel, eyes off the road, or mind off the driving situation.

2. A psychologist may have a more precise definition, but when applied to driving “cognitive blindness” refers to having your eyes open and looking at the road ahead, but the traffic situation not registering because your mind is distracted by something, such as a conversation.

3. According to traffic safety experts at Virginia Tech, about 37 percent of a driver’s attention can be diverted when talking on a cellphone, even in hands-free mode, just from listening to the other party on the call and thinking about the conversation rather than the traffic situation.

4. False. As discussed in several posts on this blog, though texting per se is probably more prevalent among drivers under age 25, the problem of distracted driving is moving into the mainstream, as auto manufacturers introduce into new cars dashboard-mounted screens that synchronize with Smartphone interfaces, allow drivers to surf the Internet, and create new forms of distraction. So, while the distracted driving problem may currently be concentrated in younger drivers, it is moving rapidly into cars driven by older drivers.

5. Going at 30 MPH, a car goes about 130 feet/43 yards/almost half a football field in three seconds. A car going 60 MPH goes about 263 feet/86 yards/almost a full football field in three seconds. (I guess we can say that a little bit of distraction goes a long way.)

6. The three steps in avoiding a crash are: (1) recognizing the situation that requires action (slowing or stopping the car, or maneuvering); (2) taking the action needed to avoid the crash (stepping on the brake, steering, or both); and (3) slowing the car, bringing it to a stop, or completing the evasive maneuver.

7. The average text message takes five seconds to compose and send.

8. If you are distracted while driving, even for a few seconds, your car covers a significant distance; distraction eliminates the time and distance a driver needs to take the three steps necessary to avoid a crash.

9. Texting is dangerous because the average text message (five seconds) takes longer than the shortest time (three seconds) necessary to avoid a crash. In other words, texting takes away a driver’s opportunity to slow or stop the car or take evasive action.

Bonus Question: Texting is the most dangerous form of distracted driving because texting involves all three forms of distraction listed above: eyes off the road, at least one hand off the wheel, and mind off the situation. (Some people say they can text without looking at the screen, but in any event, texting while keeping your eyes on the road is one form of cognitive blindness).

10. According to a prominent study by a major traffic safety research center, a driver who is texting is 23 times more likely than the safest drivers to be involved in a crash.

11. Licensing follows the rules of your home state, but when you drive in another state, you follow that state’s distracted driving rules. And ignorance of the law because you live in another state is not an excuse.

12. (This is one I just learned recently): In general, if the ignition is on, your car is “in motion,” even if you have your foot on the brake and the car is stopped. A few months ago I observed a situation that explains why this is important: I was driving on an Interstate highway and came across the scene of an accident that had happened minutes earlier. Traffic on my side of the highway was slow due to rubbernecking, but on the side where the accident had occurred, it was stopped completely. About 200 yards behind the accident, a fire truck with its lights flashing and sirens blaring was also honking furiously at a driver who was stopped and blocking the emergency vehicles from getting to the scene. Why? The driver was texting, and oblivious to the emergency vehicles behind him!

13. I have a post on this topic — whether teens should be allowed to use a GPS. The point is that a GPS with a voice providing directions may be useful in helping drivers avoid getting lost. However, any GPS that requires or allows a driver to use a keyboard while driving is plainly distracted driving, and could easily be as dangerous as texting.

14. Trick (and tricky) question. This question highlights the fact that many state laws on distracted driving try to do the impossible — to keep up with technology and define which types of electronic devices are permitted and prohibited. These laws often include exceptions that are out of date almost as soon as the laws take effect, because the technology changes so rapidly — the exemption for “audio” being a good example. Obviously, the drafters of laws with exceptions for things like audio, just two or three years ago, did not envision a single device that delivers radio, music, GPS directions, texting, Internet surfing, etc., such that exempting audio makes no sense and only confuses drivers and the general public as to what is permitted and what isn’t.

I hope this quiz has been helpful in describing some of the key issues in texting and districted driving. Class dismissed!