Teens in the Driver's Seat: Results of Peer-to-Peer Pilot Project in Texas

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers in the United States. On average, a teenager is injured every 15 minutes in a motor vehicle crash in the United States. The vast majority of these incidents involve typical factors such as speeding, talking on cell phones, nighttime driving, teen passengers, low seat belt use and alcohol impairment. While safety practitioners know these risks well, there is a relatively low awareness level of these facts among teens and their parents. This paper documents a pilot program that was developed to increase awareness among teenage drivers regarding these common risk factors using a peer-to-peer approach. Teens provided input on the development of various materials and then delivered the message to fellow teens. To measure the impact on awareness levels, surveys of teens were conducted prior to and after implementation of the pilot project at both the school where the program was deployed, as well as a neighboring school that served as the “control group.” A statistical analysis of the survey results indicated that the peer-to-peer campaign did have a significantly positive effect on increasing awareness of the key risk factors in teenage driving crashes. Further refinements to the approach used in the pilot project should place a greater emphasis on those communication mediums that were identified as being most effective. The analyses conducted in conjunction with the project also revealed that increased education and outreach regarding the graduated driver license law in Texas may be warranted.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Henk, Russell H
  • Fette, Bernie
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 85th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2006-1-22 to 2006-1-26
• Date: 2006

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 85th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Adolescents; Cellular telephones; Crash analysis; Crash risk forecasting; Fatalities; High risk drivers; Safety; Speeding; Teenage drivers
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I81: Accident Statistics;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01029426
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 06-0633
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Jul 21 2006 2:34PM