The leading cause of death for teens is motor vehicle crashes. Distracted driving is now believed to contribute to more than 50% of serious teen crashes. Unfortunately the number of fatalities grew in 2015 over 2014 and is likely to continue to grow again in 2016. Teens die in car crashes at nearly tree times the rate of any other age group so this is terrible news for our youngest drivers.
In recognition of these unfortunate facts National Teen Driver Safety Week is October 16-22. Many organizations will be working to keep our most inexperienced of drivers safe. Raising awareness during this week is very important, but Anapol Weiss believes that crashes, injuries and deaths from distracted driving are at epidemic proportions for our teens and we can’t just focus on this crisis one week in the year. To do our part to keep teens safe Anapol Weiss attorneys have been volunteering to go into middle schools and high schools and give free distracted driving presentations developed by EndDD.org Since 2010 Anapol Weiss attorneys have spoken with more than 100,000 students across the country. The presentation is science-based and was developed with the help of researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia(CHOP).
But we all can do more to reduce distracted driving crashes. Businesses can adopt safe driving policies like the one we have at Anapol Weiss. Parents must model safe driving behavior for their children. It isn’t good enough to tell our children not to drive distracted, we must stop driving distracted ourselves and be the drivers we want our children to be. Here is a Family Safe Driving Agreement that can be used to initiate a conversation within your family. Doing so could save your children’s’ lives.
