Ten days ago, eight football players in southern New Jersey got into an SUV after a morning practice, headed to a restaurant. The driver, who was licensed, was 17, and his seven passengers ranged in age from 15 to 17. New Jersey’s teen driver law prohibits drivers under 18 from having more than one passenger. The SUV crashed, killing the driver and three passengers.

It is always a delicate task for me to comment on these situations, because I understand too well the devastation that the families of the victims and the community are now experiencing. I only know about the crash what I have summarized above, which comes only from news accounts. There is no justification for anyone, including me, to engage in finger pointing or blame assessing with regard to this tragedy.

Yet one of my missions with this blog is to bring real life situations and illustrations to parents for the purpose of learning from crashes, preventing them, and saving lives, so I will venture so far as to talk about the generic situation, to reiterate several subjects about which I have posted during the past two years.

This New Jersey tragedy reminds us, first, of the well-documented high crash rates of teen drivers with passengers. Research has shown that a teen driver’s likelihood of crashing increases with each passenger. A teen driver with multiple passengers is, without a doubt, a high risk situation.

Since New Jersey has a law restricting a teen driver’s passengers commensurate with the safety research, the recent crash raises the issue of enforcement of passenger restrictions in general and after school-related events in particular. The end of a sports team practice, especially in the days before school has begun, raises several issues: How will students be transported after they leave the school campus? Will they be allowed to ride with other students? Whom do parents, students, and school personnel believe has the responsibility for monitoring post-practice transportation, and does this person or group have a mechanism for knowing and then enforcing which students are legally able to transport other students? Do parents know of the school’s arrangements for transporting? If parents have signed transportation permission forms, are their permissions — or denials of permissions — in force and being monitored by school officials? Are passengers of each teen driver aware of when getting in a car is illegal? I have suggested in several posts that schools establish a website on which students who are legally permitted to transport others can have their names listed, so parents and teens can check the list; the end of a sports practice would seem like a time of day when such a list would be helpful.

On a related subject, I have posted about the practice of newspapers and news websites opening themselves to comments (which may be anonymous and usually are) on teen driver crashes and fatalities, and on teen driver laws. New Jersey, unique in the nation, is experimenting with teen drivers voluntarily placing red stickers on their license plates when they drive, to make their cars identifiable to law enforcement and other drivers). Following the Linwood crash, one such site, NJ.com, posted an article about New Jersey’s teen driver passenger law. The link below is to the comments received, including two from me. The comments range from sensitive and insightful to inappropriate and misinformed, and everything in between. They do, collectively, however, seems to illustrate current debates about several aspects of teen driver laws, so for what it is worth, I have included the link.

I corresponded earlier today about the New Jersey situation with a prominent national researcher on teen driver and auto safety. She lamented the fact that, though we have identified thoroughly high risk situation for teen drivers, the same patterns and the same consequences seem to recur throughout high schools across the country - multiple teens driving illegally. Her comment underscored that educating parents, students, and school officials about passengers is a never-ending challenge.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/08/restrictive_nj_license_program/1607/comments-newest.html

Two ways to supplement a teen driver’s actual behind-the-wheel training time are simulators and high performance driving programs. Each has a benefit. If we conceive of driving as the experience of reacting correctly to the complex and rapidly-changing circumstances of maneuvering a car through the vehicles, signs, signals, structures, barriers, pedestrians, and weather that drivers routinely encounter, then a simulator helps because it corrects and refines reactions and improves timing. High performance driving schools, in a “closed course” or “closed environment,” teach reactions to sudden or emergency situations such as taking evasive action to avoid a crash or turning the wheel and using the brakes to counteract a skid. In particular, high performance schools allow drivers to practice emergency response in a way and in a place that generally can’t be replicated by a parent or even a Driver’s Ed instructor.

I am not an expert in the use or mechanics of simulators or the type of training that high performance schools provide, but parents should be forewarned of one obvious fact about each type of training: simulators to a degree, and more likely skid control practice, may give teen drivers a false sense of security, a feeling that he or she can now drive faster, take turns more sharply, or otherwise push the envelope of vehicle controls because they have received extra training about how to react in a potential crash situation. High performance driving practice can be exhilarating – not what we want in a new driver.

My own son’s crash illustrates the dilemma. He died because when his car skidded, he did what one not trained to respond to a skid would do; he overcorrected. On the other hand, had he gone to skid school, would he have driven more aggressively at other times, thinking that he would react correctly if his car fishtailed?

No clear answer, just a heads up.

This is another two-edged sword topic; the title could suggest that choosing a particular make and model car somehow overcomes the risks discussed in previous posts. This is not the case, and the only advice for this topic that is consistent with this blog is: the best car for a teen is no car.

I concede, however, that much of this blog is about bowing to and then proactively managing reality, so let me present the accumulated wisdom on this topic.

The best practices here are not rocket science. Cars with the most safety features are the best. The characteristics to consider for a teen driver’s car are:

• electronic stability control;
• air bags (driver, front passenger, sides);
• vehicle weight to horsepower ratio (which some experts say should be less than 15:1);
• rollover ratings (the vehicle’s center of gravity, with SUVs and pick-up trucks having higher ones);
• anti-lock brakes;
• visibility on all sides from the driver’s seat;
• crumple zones; and
• steel reinforced doors.

Obviously, automobile technology is always evolving, and manufacturers are introducing new safety features each year, such as automatic stopping sensors and rear bumper cameras in the past two years. Experts and drivers need to evaluate these new gadgets to see if they improve safety and are cost-effective. Meanwhile, if you are considering buying a new or used car for a teen driver, the best advice is to not do so, and the second best advice is to take the time and spend the money to buy a vehicle that has as many of the safety features listed above as possible.