Ford Motor Company and Safety Officials Help New England Young Drivers Improve Their Driving Skills
'Real World Driver' Identifies Top Four Driving Skills Needed to Help Teens Stay Safe
BOSTON, Oct. 16 -- To help raise awareness and fight back against the leading cause of death of young people ages 15-20 in America -- Ford Motor Company, along with the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), today demonstrated for New England high school students the four Driving Skills for Life featured in their Real World Driver program.
Real World Driver is a multi-year, educational campaign aimed at high school students, parents and the educational community. The program includes a teacher's guide, video and other materials that have been distributed to every public high school in the country (more than 20,000 schools). More than 800 educational kits were recently distributed in New England states (CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT) alone. An interactive learning Web site -- www.realworlddriver.com -- also has been launched to give students and parents more information about driving skills and provide visitors the opportunity to take a quiz online for a chance to win exciting prizes.
"Car crashes are the number one cause of death of our young people killing more than 6,000 of them each year -- more than 500 of them in the New England region alone," said Lt. Governor Kerry Healey. "Here in Massachusetts 67 young people ages 15 to 20 were killed in car crashes last year. I'm pleased that Ford Motor Company and the Governors Highway Safety Association selected our state as one of the stops on their Real World Driver educational tour."
"Sadly, many of the crashes and resulting injuries and deaths could have been prevented," said Susan Cischke, Ford Motor Company's vice president of Environmental and Safety Engineering, at today's event in Boston. "Real World Driver has been designed to illustrate for young drivers safe driving techniques in key areas that safety experts say are of particular importance to novice drivers, and will hopefully prevent them from being future accident statistics."
Four Critical Driving Skills
To design the program, Ford and GHSA convened a distinguished panel of safety experts that included, among others, NHTSA, the International Association of Chiefs of Police's Highway Safety Committee and Students Against Destructive Decisions. According to the Real World Driver Advisory Board*, the four key driving skills young, novice drivers should master are: hazard recognition, vehicle handling, space management and speed management.
"Our Advisory Board identified specific actions, like left turns, that can turn deadly for teens due to their lack of awareness and experience in those areas," Cischke said. "Real World Driver's goal is to turn these four areas into four 'driving skills for life' by focusing on the skills that are most likely to prevent crashes and save lives. But awareness is only part of the solution. There is no substitute for behind-the-wheel training and practice."
Graduated Licensing and Extended Education
Ford partnered with GHSA, which represents state highway safety offices, to ensure that Real World Driver is promoted in states and local communities. "We're excited to partner with Ford on this program and hope it will help states raise awareness of the teen driving issue as they work to strengthen their graduated driver's licensing laws," said Coordinator of the New Hampshire Highway Safety Agency and GHSA Board Member Peter Thomson. "We are also optimistic that Real World Driver will encourage high school students to get more actual driving time with a focus on specific driving skills."
Ford, GHSA and other safety experts agree that the sensible way for teens to learn driving is to phase them into it. Most states now have graduated driver's licensing (GDL) laws that do just that -- restrict driving in risky times and under risky circumstances until responsible performance is demonstrated over a period of time. Ford and GHSA support graduated driving laws, and hope Real World Driver will help augment them by offering guidance to parents and teens on what skills should be learned and practiced.
A national survey** by Wirthlin Worldwide indicated that just 11 percent of parents and 12 percent of all adults are satisfied with the training resources available to first-time drivers. Moreover, nearly all parents (94 percent) are concerned about their teens driving independently. "Parents are justly concerned that their young drivers aren't receiving enough supervised time behind the wheel before they take to the nation's busy streets and highways alone, and with friends," said NHTSA Regional Administrator Tom Louizou. "Programs like Real World Driver can give young drivers more practice in useful safe driving skills."
Today's Real World Driver event at the Bayside Expo Center in Columbia Point, MA included a hands-on safe driving demonstration for a group of Massachusetts teens. Each teen was paired with a driving expert from Car and Driver magazine in order to gain experience in the four skill areas:
* Hazard Recognition: Recognizing and anticipating hazards, such as
distractions and intersections, and dealing with them successfully.
Safe techniques for approaching and turning left at intersections are
examples of what is addressed.
* Vehicle Handling: Learning how to handle different vehicles competently
under a range of driving circumstances and maneuvers. Vehicle balance,
type and braking are all covered.
* Space Management: Maintaining safe spacing with other traffic and
managing space in an emergency. This section addresses the importance
of positioning your vehicle safely in traffic.
* Speed Management: Driving at speeds that are right for conditions and
maintaining control in dangerous situations such as skids. Issues
addressed are centered on knowing the road, letting others know your
intentions and knowing how to react to other drivers' actions.
Ford, GHSA and Car and Driver are taking the demonstrations on the road this fall and throughout 2004 to major cities around the country to ensure that high school students nationwide have the opportunity to practice the four critical driving skills first-hand.
Buckle Up
While hands-on, behind-the-wheel training and educational materials are important elements of any safe driving program, Cischke reminds all drivers that safety belts continue to provide the single, most effective protection in any vehicle crash.
"Parents should insist that their teenagers buckle up," Cischke says. "The safety belt is the single best way to avoid getting hurt in a crash. In addition, teens should never get into a car with anyone who has been drinking."
NOTE: Photos from the event will be available for download for your free and unrestricted use at www.realworlddriver.com/media shortly after the event concludes.
*Real World Driver Advisory Board members include representatives from the following organizations:
Ford Motor Company; the Governors Highway Safety Association; Great American; The Hartford; International Association of Chiefs of Police, Highway Safety Committee; Liberty Mutual Insurance; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Students Against Destructive Decisions; Top Driver; Transportation Safety Association; Travelers Property Casualty; and Young Drivers.
** A nationally representative sample of one thousand and one (1001) interviews was conducted among the general public during December 13 - 16, 2002. For a sample of this size, the error due to sampling is +3.1 percentage points. Included in the nationally representative general public sample were 185 parents of teens. To ensure that there was a representative size of parents of teenage children Wirthlin Worldwide conducted an oversample of 175 interviews with parents of teens, for a total of 360. For a sample of this size, the error due to sampling is +5.2. When reporting on American adults, we are referring to the total sample of 1001, excluding the oversample of parents of teens. When reporting on parents of teens we are reporting on the total sample of 360 parents of teenagers.
State 1999 2000 2001 2002 CONNECTICUT 39 39 59 60 MAINE 35 29 34 38 MASSACHUSETTS 73 66 81 67 NEW HAMPSHIRE 22 19 19 12 RHODE ISLAND 6 15 16 12 VERMONT 17 18 9 11 NATIONAL 6,378 6,434 6,442 6,724
