St. Lawrence County’s traffic safety specialist is warning drivers of the dangers of texting or being distracted by other electronic devices while driving.

Her warning comes at the same time as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is calling for a nationwide ban on the use of all personal electronic devices while driving.

“All too often, the devices are winning and our kids are losing—with tragic results,” said Mary Davison, with the St. Lawrence County Traffic Safety Program.

Data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show that in 2009 more than 3,214 teens ages 15 through 19 died in vehicle crashes of all types, and 18% of those fatal crashes involved distracted driving.

Locally, younger drivers are involved in 19% of the fatal and personal injury crashes, even though they make up only 6% of licensed drivers, based on 2009 state statistics, she said.

The heartbreaking results of distracted driving are due to many causes—from texting and talking on a cell phone to eating and playing with a radio, CD player, or MP3 device, she said.

While no one is exempt from the impact of distracting devices brought into a vehicle, today’s connected teens are especially susceptible, she noted. A survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reported that nearly half of the teens interviewed had ridden in a vehicle with a driver who texted behind the wheel. A third of the teens surveyed said they’d texted themselves while driving.

Not all the news about teen driving is negative. Overall, teen driving deaths and teen driver involvement in fatal crashes have declined during the last 9 years, according to NHTSA data. In 2009, the number of fatalities in crashes involving a 15- to 19-year-old driver dropped 10 percent compared with 1998. It’s impossible to pinpoint a single reason for the decline, but youth driving programs like New York State’s Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) have had a profound impact in saving young lives.

Parents may have the biggest impact of all on younger drivers. Those parents who set consistent rules, such as imposing driving curfews and supporting license restrictions, are shown to decrease rates of crash involvement by their teen children.

A tool that parents can use to help manage their teen’s driving is a parent-teen driver agreement.

These are provided to parents when their child registers for a driver permit, or can be accessed on the St. Lawrence County Traffic Safety Web page, http://tinyurl.com/65lmy2u.

The New York State Department of Health defines the parent-teen agreement as an outline for discussing the following:

• Driving restrictions, such as limits on teen passengers or night time driving. Safety experts recommend that initially the newly-licensed teen drive only before 9 PM and with no teen passengers. After six months of driving, parents may choose to relax the restrictions by allowing one teen passenger and extend driving to 10 or 11p.m.

• Driving rules that should be followed by all family members, including parents. These include always using a safety belt, obeying traffic safety laws and not using a cell phone while driving. Other rules may address use and maintenance of the car as well as costs for gas or repairs. Some parents also impose other rules that may affect use of the vehicle, such as maintaining good grades in school.

• Driving conditions, which involve having your teen let you know where he/ she is going, who they are with, and when he/she will return from each driving trip. Your teen should know what to do or how to contact you if their plans change.

• Consequences for breaking the driving agreement. These might include taking away driving privileges for a certain amount of time. It is important to follow through with consequences when the agreement is broken to ensure its success.

Those who would like more information about teen driving can contact The St. Lawrence County Traffic Safety Program at 379-2306 or e-mail mdavison@stlawco.org.

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