Parents Are KeyParents and other trusted adults play a vital role in keeping teens safe on the road. Parents of teens may only notice their children gaining independence and "slipping away." But in reality teens still need structure and rules. Our National Young Driver Survey (NYDS) asked over 5,600 teens from across the country about their driving perceptions and behaviors. We found that the majority (87 percent) have a parent involved in teaching them to drive, and 4 in 10 teens report only having parents teach them to drive. We also found that the way parents approach driving affects how teens perceive crash risks and practice safe driving behaviors. According to new CHOP research, teen drivers with peer passengers were more likely to be distracted just before a serious crash than teens driving alone. Among the teens who said they were distracted by something inside the vehicle before crashing, 71 percent of males and 47 percent of females said they were distracted directly by the actions of their passengers. Males that drove their friends were almost six times more likely to perform an illegal maneuver and more than twice as likely to drive aggressively just before a crash than when driving solo. Females rarely drove aggressively before a crash, regardless of whether they had passengers in the car. Involved parents who set rules and monitor their teens' driving behavior in a supportive way can lower their teens' crash risk by half. We also found that teens who perceive their parents as acting in this way are:
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