To Driver Educate or Not to Driver Educate

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To Driver Educate or Not to Driver Educate?
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Teen Crash Facts

• Teens (15-20 year olds) comprise 6.6 (12.6
  million) of all licensed drivers (191 million)
• 8,278 teen drivers were involved in a fatal
  crashes in 2002
• Fourteen percent of all fatal crashes involved a
  teenage driver
• Sixteen percent (1,825,000) of all police
  reported crashes

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Teen Population Statistics

• There are approximately 20 million teenagers in
  the United States.
• 12.6 million licensed young drivers.

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Related Costs of Crashes

• 8,000 occupants of other vehicles were killedby
  young drivers
• 3,827 teen drivers were killed
• Over 324,000 teens drivers were injured in
  crashes in the year 2002
• Annual cost of automobile crashes involving young
  drivers 32,000,000,000!

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Young Drivers Crashes 1999 - 2002(15-20 years
old)

• 1999 - Fatalities 6,378
• 2000 - Fatalities 6,434
• 2001 - Fatalities 6,457
• 2002 - Fatalities 6,724
• Four year total 25,993

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Ancient History

• Driver Education reached its zenith in the late
  1960s and early 70s when 14,000 high schools
  offered driver training to over 2 million
  students.

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Ancient History

• This represented about 70 of those eligible for
  training
• The National Highway Safety Bureau (the
  forerunner of NHTSA) had 18 state highway program
  standards.
• Standard 4 was Driver Education

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Ancient History

• The Bureau supported the Driver Education
  Standard by providing State and Community Highway
  Safety Grant Program funds (Section 402) to the
  states to improve and evaluate their driver
  education programs.

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Ancient History

• The states primarily used these funds to expand
  the programs, with very little money used to
  improve the quality of the programs or to
  evaluate them.

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Ancient History

• The Agency then used Highway Safety Research and
  Development funds (Section 403) to initiate a
  major program of research, development and
  evaluation in driver education.
• Intent was to determine the extent of the
  positive benefit of driver education in reducing
  crashes.

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Ancient History

• Results of two studies were disappointing and
  lead to the eventual end of the Agencys use of
  402 funds to support driver education.
• In the years since, public school driver
  education went into a decline that seemed to
  follow the federal governments decision to stop
  providing grant monies to the states for driver
  training.

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Ancient History

• Currently there are no federal requirements or
  standards for driver education programs.

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Current Events

• The National Highway Traffic Safety
  Administration has two cooperative agreements
  that deal with Driver Education and Training

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Current Events

• The Indiana University of Pennsylvania's (IUP)
  Highway Safety Center in cooperation with the
  American Driver And Traffic Safety Education
  Association (ADTSEA),
• Develop Credentialing Program for Driver
  Education Instructors
• Develop Standardized Driver Education Curriculum
• Driver Education Public Information and Education

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Current Events

• The IUP and ADTSEA (contd),
• Two Stage driver education
• Cooperative Activities with AAMVA
• Technical assistance to States with GDL or those
  considering GDL.

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Current Events

• The American Association of Motor Vehicle
  Administrators (AAMVA).
• Develop Driver Education curriculum (Classroom
  and Behind-the-wheel).
• Develop a National Model Non-commercial driver
  testing system (With Indiana University of PA).
• GDL Parent/Teen participation guide

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Current Events

• AAMVA continued
• Generic Driver manual
• Knowledge test item pool
• Skills test exercises
• Skills road test

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Current Events

• Research projects include
• Michigan 2 stage driver education
• Texas Effectiveness of Home schooled driver
  education
• Oregon Effectiveness of Required Hours of
  Parental Involvement
• Georgia Long Term Effects of GDL
• Multi-state study of the effects of GDL Johns
  Hopkins University

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Back to the Future!

• Increasing Corporate Involvement
• AAA
• Cingular Wireless
• Ford
• Daimler/Chrysler
• Mitsubishi
• NETS (Parent teen guide)

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Back to the Future!

• Private Driver Education programs increasing
• Most are unregulated
• Web-based training increasing
• Video game generation
• Technology to keep their interest!

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Where do we go from here?

• Why cant we come to consensus on the importance
  of Driver Education?
• If training is so important in other areas of
  traffic safety why doesnt Driver Education get
  the same attention?

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Where do we go from here?

• What currently is being offered is working but is
  it working well?
• Who is conducting what research, on what
  subjects?
• Handout Graduated Driver Licensing Research in
  2003 and Beyond, Hedlund, Compton, and Schults
• What is the future of 30/6?
• Does Driver Education need National direction?

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Where do we go from here?

• Driver Training is in transition.
• Corporate involvement.
• Distance learning.
• Home Schooling.
• Private schools.

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Summary

• Driver Education is not going away!
• What can be done to improve Driver Education?
• How do we harness technology to teach the
  Video-generation?

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Summary

• What role does corporate America play?
• Do the private schools need to be regulated by
  the states?
• What role does the federal government have in
  Driver Education?

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