The auto insurance industry can lower the cost of premiums for insuring teen drivers through proactive measures that modify driving behaviour in this segment.
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety said in a statement that that majority of the teen crashes over the past five years involved distracted driving. AAA Foundation said that nearly 60% of teen crashes involve distractions behind the wheel, particularly texting and the use of social media. It reported that more than 5,000 people have been killed in crashes involving teens since 2011.
“By better understanding how teens are distracted on the road, we can better prevent deaths,” Jurek Grabowski, Research Director for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, said.
According to a study in collaboration with the University of Iowa, covering a period of 2007-2012, using a cell phone accounted for 12% of crashes among teens. The statement said that researchers have found that how teens use their cell phone when behind the wheel have changed over the years. In the moments leading up to a crash, teens were most likely to be texting or looking at their phone rather than talking into it.
Meanwhile talking to other passengers led to 15% of the crashes in the study, while looking at objects inside the vehicle accounted for 11% of the crashes.
Thus, teen drivers need to be unhanded of their cell phones while behind the wheel to mitigate the worsening trend, AAA Foundation said, citing that distracted driving results in crashes that are 23 times worse than those that are not. Moreover, the organisation said that nearly 67% of crashes involving teen drivers also injured or killed individuals other than the teen driver themselves.
