Teen Driving Safety

Important information for parents and teens about teaching a culture of safe driving from a study by Arthur Goodwin‚ Robert Foss‚ of the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center is just beginning and I will keep you up to date on it’s finding.

Nearly every state now has a graduated driver licensing (GDL) system that requires adult supervision of beginning teen drivers for at least six months. This is a cost effective way to provide the large amount of practical driving experience that novices need to become safe drivers. However, most experts agree that there is room for improvement both in getting states to adopt more stringent versions of GDL (e.g., nighttime restriction at 9 PM rather than midnight), and in strengthening implementation.

Enhancing parental mentoring is seen as a promising way to improve GDL implementation; thus, a much better understanding of what actually happens during driving practice is needed.

This study was designed to learn more about how parents interact with their teens during driving practice when the teens are first learning to drive, and use this information to guide the development of materials to help parents be effective mentors for their teens. Using a series of in-depth interviews with parents as well as DriveCam in-vehicle cameras, this study will examine the interaction between parents and their teens during their teens’ first days, weeks, and months of learning to drive.

The study continues to monitor a subset of these teens through the first several months after they obtained their provisional license and began driving without supervision, providing a first-of-its-kind opportunity to relate the driving behaviors of newly licensed teens to information about the environment in which they learned to drive.

For this and all sorts of other information on Tennessee highway safety come to the web site of Phillip Miller & Associates and if you have any questions call 615-356-2000.

Parental Control

As an experienced Tennessee auto accident lawyer I am a big supporter of the Tennessee graduated drivers license scheme. I believe that it saves the lives of our children and those unfortunate enough to come into contact with them on the highway

As a parent it is your duty to talk to your teen driver about when you expect them to have the car back in the driveway. The reason for setting a “home-by” rule is to protect your kids by keeping them from driving during the high-risk nighttime hours. In 2006, 75 percent of all fatal nighttime crashes involving 16 year-old drivers happened between 6 pm and midnight.

Under the Tennessee GDL what are the night time restrictions for drivers with a learner permit?

Anyone under the age of 18 who has a learner permit will be prohibited from driving between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. When driving, permit holders must have a licensed driver age 21 or older in the vehicle with them. Seatbelt use is mandatory for everyone in the vehicle under the age of 18 (passengers age 3 and under must be in an approved child restraint device).

What are the evening restrictions for drivers with an intermediate restricted license?

Those with an intermediate restricted license are prohibited from driving between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., UNLESS:

* They are accompanied by a parent or guardian;

* They are accompanied by a licensed driver 21 or older who has been designated by the parent or guardian. This designation must be in writing and be in the possession of the teen driver;

* They are driving to or from a specifically identified school sponsored activity or event and have in their possession written permission from a parent or guardian to do this;

* They are driving to or from work and have in their possession written permission from a parent or guardian identifying the place of employment and authorizing the driver to go to and from work;

* They are driving to or from hunting or fishing between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. and have in their possession a valid hunting or fishing license.

Teach your children well and they will grow up to have children of their own. Teach them that there are serious consequences if they are caught in violation of these curfews. If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee car crash caused by a teen driver you owe it to your self to contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates.

Teen Drivers

To those of you who read my Tennessee Auto Accident Attorney Blog, you know I write a lot about teen drivers and parental responsibility. Today I would like to address a topic close to my heart, the Graduated Drivers License.

Chances are good that you live in Tennessee or one of the 45 other states or the District of Columbia that has adopted a three-stage Graduated Driver’s License law. As a parent it is your duty to make sure you and your Tennessee teenage driver know and understand the law, before they get behind the wheel. For all you need to know about the Tennessee law click here.

As an experienced Nashville auto accident lawyer I too often see young, inexperienced drivers, particularly 16- to 17-year-olds, die in fatal Tennessee car crashes, in large part because of immaturity and inexperience. Three-stage GDL laws reduce these factors by reducing high-risk exposure for young drivers.

Analysis shows GDL laws have helped reduce crashes for this age group – anywhere between 20 and 40 percent. Keep your child alive by insisting they follow the GDL rules.

If you want to learn more about keeping your teen driver safe contact the experienced Tennessee auto accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates.

Too Young To drive

In a recent article in the Nashville Tennessean, writer Jennifer Brooks posits an interesting question,  “Would Tennessee teens be safer as older drivers?” She points out that every year thousands of 15 year-old drivers take to the highways and byways of Tennessee. As an experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyer I can tell you that many of them are dying in urban and rural areas, and taking others with them.

As she points out in her article, “Tennessee is one of the deadliest states for young drivers, and Nashville is one of the most dangerous metro regions.” Citing a 2008 sutdy conducted by Allstate Insurance Co. that shows that Tennessee ranked sixth in the nation for fatal crashes involving teen drivers. She went on to point out that the same study ranked the Nashville-Murfreesboro metro region fourth in the nation for fatal teen crashes.

In an effort to keep young drivers safer, Tennessee introduced a graduated driver’s license law in 2000 to ease teen drivers into the responsibilities of driving and limit the number of unsupervised hours they can spend on the road. She goes on to mention on a recent report by the Tennessee Comptroller that shows there has been a significant drop in the number of traffic crashes involving young drivers from 136 in 2005 for every thousand drivers aged 15-24 to 11 for the same group by 2009.

How would you answer this thoughtful question? If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a teen driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates at 615-356-2000 and take advantage of a free consultation to find out about your rights and remedies.