A recent conducted by AAA, Distracted Driving Among Newly Licensed Teen Drivers, reveals that teenage girls are twice as likely to use a cell phone or electronic device than boys.
This was the first study conducted using in-car video footage to specifically focus on teen distracted driving habits.
Girls were also observed reaching for an object in the vehicle while driving more than twice than the boys. Young female drivers are 25% more likely to eat or drink beverages while behind the wheel. Boys however, were more than twice as likely to turn around in their seats while driving, completely taking their field of vision away from the road.
Looking at a cell phone is a bigger distraction than reaching for another object inside the car. Young drivers that took their eyes off the road to look at a cell phone did so for a full second longer than those that were faced with another type of distraction.
The AAA study also revealed that passengers can positively and negatively affect a teens driving habits. Distractions decreased and the teen drivers were more focused when parents or other adults were in the car. On the other hand, when more than one teen passenger was in the car, the distractions increased through loud conversations and horseplay in more than 50% of these situations. Drivers were six times as likely to have a serious incident when there was loud conversation in the vehicle, and were more than twice as likely to have a high g-force event when there was horseplay.
Click here for more information on AAA.
For additional resources on educating young drivers of distracted driving, please visit; www.endDD.org, www.60forsafety.org, or http://www.anapolschwartz.com/attorneys/joel_feldman.shtml
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