[Times photo: Skip O'Rourke]
Donna Graf and her son Mike, 17, show the Go Get Mom bumper sticker on a family car. Graf got the idea for a sticker from a similar one on trucks.
[Times photo: Michael Rondou]
Tiffany Mackey checks the parallel-parking progress of driver Kashannon Myrick during a driver's education class at Northeast High.
When Bert Waterman III got his learner's license last year, he knew his parents would have to certify that he had 50 hours of supervised driving experience before he could get his regular license.
To a teenager, 50 hours can seem like a lifetime. His father thought 500 hours would be better.
So Bert, who lives in Seminole, drove with his parents in the car until his father was satisfied that he was ready to solo.
"And still, the first time watching him go out the driveway by himself, I was standing there going, "Oh no,' " Bert Waterman II says.
It's a feeling every parent of a teen driver knows. Getting a driver's license is a liberating rite of passage for young people. But it is a perilous one, too.
Chamberlain High School sophomores Naomi Tidwell and Tiffany Tripp, both 16, died Saturday when the SUV Naomi was driving hurtled off a road in Tampa. Their deaths added to a grim statistic.
Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for people between 15 and 20. In 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 5,933 teens died in road accidents. For comparison's sake, more than 43,000 people lost their lives in traffic accidents in 2003.
Researchers and educators cite two main reasons: teens' sense of invincibility and their lack of driving experience. They don't think anything bad can happen on the road, and they don't have the skills to avoid it when it does.
Sixteen-year-olds are at the greatest risk. In terms of vehicle miles driven, they die in crashes four times more often than adults - and three times more often than older teens.
"We put them out there with minimum training and bad examples," says Phil Berardelli, a journalist and author in Virginia who has been writing about the toll of traffic crashes for 10 years.
Parents wouldn't expect a child to play a piano concert after six lessons. Yet, Berardelli says, the average driver's education course provides each student about six hours' time behind the wheel.
"Parents will lavish money, attention, instruction on any other thing," he says. "But when it comes to the most dangerous thing we do every day, they abandon ship."
Before Donna Graf's son turned 16 last year, she was thinking about "something I could do to avoid that knock on the door, that call at midnight."
Graf of Valrico started a company called Go Get Mom, which sells a bumper sticker that lets motorists report reckless driving by teens.
Graf says she got the idea from the "How's my driving?" bumper stickers used on many commercial vehicles. Now Go Get Mom is getting national attention, including a feature in Newsweek.
The first driver to get a sticker was her son, Mike. Soon, Graf got a call that he had just been seen driving 20 mph over the speed limit.
"I called him and said, "Why are you flying down Lithia Pinecrest Road?' He was like, "Whoa!' "
Says Mike, "I thought it would never work. I kind of still think that. But I do drive more carefully."
Enrollment in the sticker program costs about $80, which Graf points out is less than most traffic tickets. Calls to the toll-free number are recorded, then forwarded immediately to the parent's phone. The idea, Graf says, is "to catch them in the act.
"It makes them a little more responsible from the get-go."
Kenneth Beck, a University of Maryland professor of social psychology who studies risk taking, says teens' sense of invulnerability can lead them to take chances that many adults would avoid. And there is simply no magical way to make them aware of their limitations.
Parents who remember the old driver's education film strips showing horrific traffic accidents might hope they would change behavior, but Beck says fear has only short-lived emotional effects.
The most useful strategy, he says, is finding ways to offset that risk-taking behavior by teaching teens to drive well.
The period of greatest risk for young drivers is the first three to six months of independent driving, when teens have a regular license and don't have to be supervised by an adult.
"We know that a teen isn't remarkably safer until he has had several thousand hours of behind-the-wheel experience," Beck says.
States have made some efforts to minimize risk while they get that experience. Many, including Florida, have instituted graduated driver licensing, which grants novice drivers limited privileges and requires them to be supervised by adults.
In Florida, any driver younger than 18 must hold a learner's license for one year, during which he or she must be accompanied by a licensed driver older than 21 in the front seat.
Parents must sign the license application and then certify the teen has at least 50 hours behind the wheel before an operator's license is issued. Even with that license, 16- and 17-year-olds have some time restrictions on their driving.
Parents should remember that they can put restrictions on their teen's driving that the law does not, Beck says.
"Teens who report that their parents put greater restrictions on them . . . report that they take fewer risks," Beck says.
He says written agreements on restrictions and the consequences of violating them can be helpful.
Parents also need to evaluate their child's maturity and driving skills on an ongoing basis. "Even after they have the license, get in the car with them and actively provide instruction."
Bill Dudley has been teaching kids to drive at Northeast High School in St. Petersburg for 35 years, longer than anyone else in Pinellas.
"I tell them the first day, this is the most important subject you'll ever take in school," he says. "If you make a mistake in math, you'll have a chance to do it over. If you make a mistake driving, you may never get another chance."
Kids today seem to be more experienced coming into class, Dudley says, whether from actual driving time or video driving games.
These days, Dudley says, there is no gender gap. Girls used to be more cautious than boys. "Now they all make the same mistakes."
Some changes are positive: More teens wear seat belts than ever before.
"The biggest problem is that they make some poor decisions. They don't understand the limitations of a car, and they're more bold than they need to be."
Because Northeast has its own range, students get about 20 hours of driving time in a semester. But that doesn't make them ready to hit the road on their own.
"Parents still have to take an active role. The more you get the kid behind the wheel, the better," Dudley says.
Bruce Murakami knows too well the consequences of teenage recklessness. In 1998, his wife, Cindy, and 11-year-old daughter, Chelsea, died when a car struck their minivan in Tampa.
The car's 19-year-old driver, Justin Cabezas, was racing another car on busy Hillsborough Avenue, traveling an estimated 20 to 30 miles over the speed limit. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Moved by Cabezas' remorseful apology, Murakami asked the judge for mercy. Cabezas was sentenced to house arrest, probation and community service. Today, Murakami and Cabezas work together, talking to teens all over Florida.
Last year, Murakami founded Safe Teen Driver, a nonprofit organization that brings teens personal stories of young drivers who have caused serious accidents.
In the organization's first year, volunteers visited more than 30 schools and youth groups. "It's become my full-time job," Murakami says.
He has been busy during prom and graduation season, when schools see his message as even more urgent.
"After the prom, a teacher called to thank me. She said, "Everyone got home safe.' "
He says he has been asked to visit Chamberlain High School in the wake of the deaths of Tidwell and Tripp. "It's just sad," he says. "That girl was a very inexperienced driver." Tidwell had had her operator's license for only a few months.
Bert Waterman II, the dad who made sure his son had 500 hours of driving under his belt before he got his license, was motivated in part by what he has learned running an insurance agency.
He says that when 16- or 17-year-olds are added to a family policy, seven out of 10 will get a ticket or have an accident within the first year.
He says getting an older car for a teen not only reduces insurance costs, which are steep, but reduces risk.
Berardelli, author of Safe Young Drivers: A Guide for Parents and Teens, agrees. "Don't ever buy a new car for a teen."
No sports cars, no rollover-prone SUVs, no muscle cars. "Buy them a clunker. Get a used car, preferably one that's seven to 10 years old.
"The best is an old station wagon. It's more rigid, it offers more protection, it's ugly, and it's underpowered."
That's probably not what your teen wants to hear. And that's Berardelli's main point: Parents have to maintain authority while their kids are learning to drive. In Florida, they can even ask the state to take away their child's license if he or she is younger than 18.
Says Berardelli: "You have to be prepared to tell them, "Who says 16 is when you get your license?'
"It's not rocket science. It's just hard to do."
- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Colette Bancroft can be reached at bancroft@sptimes.com or 727 893-8435.
TEEN DRIVING RISK FACTORS
DRIVING AFTER DARK. Automatic reflexes and driving skills are just developing during the first months of driving. Darkness is an extra variable to cope with.
f,8.5,ux0,,10.8 DRIVING WITH FRIENDS. Teens are safer driving by themselves or with family. They should drive as much as possible with an experienced driver, who can help develop good driving habits. As tempting as it might be, new drivers should wait until they have a consistent, safe driving record before taking friends as passengers. Friends, to the new driver, are a big distraction.
RECREATIONAL DRIVING. For the first three to six months after getting a license, drivers should try to gain their experience driving for school and work, not for fun.
NOT BUCKLING UP. Use safety gear like a pro.
DRIVING WHEN DROWSY. Anyone who is sleepy should stop driving until fully alert. Sleepiness might cause more accidents than alcohol.
DRIVING AFTER DRINKING ALCOHOL. Drinking slows reflexes and impairs judgment. These effects happen to anyone who drinks. Always find someone to drive who has not been drinking. Parents should make teens feel comfortable calling them for a ride.
- Source: Medline Plus (medlineplus.gov), a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health
TO LEARN MORE
For information about Go Get Mom bumper stickers, go to gogetmom.com.
For information on Safe Young Drivers: A Guide for Parents and Teens and Phil Berardelli's other books, go to www.safeyoungdrivers.com
For information on Bruce Murakami's Safe Teen Driver program, go to www.safeteendriver.org
