According to the Centers for Disease Control, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teenagers — accounting for over 6,000 fatalities per year and 36% of all deaths in that age group.
As someone who relies on the care and skill of all drivers I share the road with, those numbers are a bit disconcerting.
The good news is that a recent nationwide survey by Allstate Insurance found that the Portland metro area was among the top-ten least deadliest for teen drivers.
Allstate conducted a nationwide safe teen driving campaign earlier this spring that studied federal crash statistics, Allstate claims data on teen collisions, and U.S. Census bureau statistics to examine the frequency of fatal crashes involving teens down to the local level around the country.
Read more about the results here.
Sharon White, with the City of Portland’s Community and Schools Traffic Safety Partnership, says that’s no fluke. “Many of our CSTSP partners are actively working with young drivers and their parents to reduce transportation injuries and fatalities involving teen drivers.”
She points to several programs and services that have had an impact on making our streets safer by educating teen drivers:
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Legacy Emanuel Hospital
Graduated Driver’s Licensing Workshops – A free three-hour workshop focused on familiarizing youth and their parents with the graduated licensing law (GDL) and other traffic laws and how to use the laws effectively. For high school freshman and sophomores with their parents.
Family Driver Education – Offered to school driver’s education teachers to serve at Parent Night to meet the ODOT requirement of parent involvement.
Bike Wheels to Steering Wheel – The curriculum for middle school students and science classes links science and safety by exploring how Newton’s Laws connect with traffic safety principles.
Minor in Possession (For youth under age 18) – A 4-hour hospital-based class for youth cited in juvenile court for Minor in Possession (MIP), open container or other drug related offenses and their parents. The class includes education about the science to support the drinking law remaining at age 21 and the consequences of making bad choices while under the influence.
Not My Kid Campaign – Two hour panel presentation with collaboration of local law enforcement, health expert and community representatives from insurance industry, legal representatives, school alcohol/ tobacco/ drug counselor and students join a family educator to provide awareness education about hazards, consequences and liability when good kids mix alcohol and other drugs with driving or recreation. Designed for middle and high school students with their parents.
Multnomah County Courts and Legacy Emanuel Hospital
Share The Road Safety Class – This class (a partnership between Multnomah County Courts and Legacy Emanuel Hospital) was developed for drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists who have received a citation for being in the wrong place on the road (such as a car in a bicycle lane), failure to yield the right of way and/or defective equipment or non-use of safety equipment, focuses on traffic law and safety issues as they relate to bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists needing to share the public right-of-way in a safe and lawful manner.
Portland Public Schools
Driver Education – A driver education course is offered at five locations for Portland Public School students age 15 to 18. The course, approved by the state Department of Transportation, runs from 30 hours, plus six hours behind the wheel and six hours of in-car observation. Cost is $249.
I have worked with Ms. White and many of her colleagues at the City of Portland and at partnering agencies and organizations. I can say from experience that they are some of most dedicated people you will ever meet and we all owe them our gratitude and thanks.
As the results of this comprehensive report show, their work is making an important impact on the safety of our streets.
— Download the Executive Summary of “Allstate America’s Teen Driving Hotspots” Study here (576kb, PDF)
— Visit Community and Schools Traffic Safety Partnership website.
This is interesting. We know Portland is becoming safer for cyclists as more bikes hit the streets. Are all those bikes making the streets safer for drivers too? I\’d bet.
I\’m strongly considering not allowing my daughter to get a driver\’s license when she is 16 (she is seven now), or riding in a car where the driver is under 18. We live in close-in NE and I can\’t imagine that she won\’t be able to get where she needs to go if she\’s limited to walking, biking, or public transportation. When she\’s 18 and a legal adult she can decide for herself.
I grew up in a rural area, and a car was really helpful for mobility. Turning 16 and getting that license was a big deal. Here in Portland, I don\’t see a real need to get a license so young. Who knows what things will be like in nine years? Any thoughts?
Mark C,
I agree with your thinking completely. The truth is that in Portland no one really needs a car, especially not teenagers. Perhaps access to public transportation for teens is one reason why it is so safe.
Personally, I didn\’t get my drivers license until I was twenty years old, and only because I thought it might eventually be useful. I still do not own a car. I think that traveling even vast distances via public transit and bicycle gives you more respect for the energy that it actually takes to get there.
She will be the uncool girl with the uncool parents.
Unless it\’s her idea, and there\’s peer group acceptance of alternative transportation.
The truth is, nobody is old enough to drive until they reach the age of 25. Before that, they may have legal status as adults, but they don\’t have adult decision-making ability, just access to alcohol and several-hundred horsepower.
When I have teenagers one day, hopefully by the time they\’re 16 they will want to keep riding their bikes and not have a complete obsession with getting a car like I did. Boy I don\’t miss those days.
Yeah, I have to think that even now there is a significant subset of the teenage population that thinks it\’s cool or green to not be driving around everywhere. In ten years, probably more so (at least I hope). When I was in high school I can\’t remember anyone who wasn\’t dying to get that license.
Mark — I think you might find that she won\’t miss having a car at all. I have a 16 y.o. and a 14 y.o. who show no interest in driving at all. We live in Sully\’s Gulch and their bikes, skateboards and tootsies take them everywhere they need to be. And most of their friends are likeminded. It seems that when you grow up in inner PDX you do learn that cars can be unnecessary. — Z.
I know many Portlanders in their 20s… several of whom do not drive, and don\’t even have a license. They have been riding public transit their whole lives…
Speaking of teen drivers, last Thursday my friend and I along with a bike commuter were headed up Skyline towards Cornell Road when we had a bad encounter with an SUV full of teenage males. They sped past us honking their horn and yelling out of their windows.
As we approached the top of the climb two of Portland\’s Finest had the SUV in question pulled over. The looks on their faces as we passed by were great! Hopefully this karmic episode will have a valuable impact on their driving in the future.
Mark,
When your seven year old turns 16, she won\’t be able to afford to drive when gas is $10 a gallon.
Teenage drivers are my worst fear on a bike. When I was biking in Australia for a year everyone kept telling me to watch out for the road trains (super long tractor trailers), snakes, jellyfish, etc…they would all kill me!
What nearly killed me multiple times were teenage drivers trying to run me off the road. The semi drivers were the the best drivers out there.
Granted, I have a large chip on my shoulder against teenage drivers. In 1995 my grandma was walking near a high school in Central Washington. The high school kids were all leaving school and one of them swerved over toward my grandma as if to play \”chicken\” but accidentally hit her. Their argument was that all three of them were looking for a lighter on the floor and not paying attention to the road. The grandma I knew basically died that day. She lived another 8 years but was never the same.
My son is 13 and I have gone back and forth on this issue. I have decided that I want to be the one to teach him to drive/ control access to his vehicle… I also want to be with him for his first few hundred hours behind the wheel, so that by the time he drives unsupervised he has some experience.
Dont tell him though- he still thinks he wont be allowed to drive unless he has a 4.0 and an acceptance letter from MIT in hand 😉
I love parenting 😀
This story really hits home for me.
I grew up in Detroit. At 15, I had a learner\’s permit, and my driver\’s license as soon as I turned 16. I didn\’t get my own car until I was 17, but only because I had to pay for it without help from the parents. My first car was $200, and in the year I owned it, I spent $1600 in repairs on it. (1976 Pontiac Astre)
In the first 4 years I drove, until I was 20, I was in 4 \”accidents\”. My mother was driving in one, my best friend (teen) in another, I was hit by a guy who ran a red light (totalled the Astre), and I killed the frame of my second car when it jumped the curb on a turn on a rainy day.
I also routinely drove 70 in a 25 through a residential neighborhood on my way to high school in my senior year, and once hit 125 on a metro-Detroit freeway. I\’m very lucky I didn\’t kill myself or others. I usually had 2-4 tickets on my driving record at any given time.
Needless to say, approaching 40 years old, my driving habits have calmed somewhat. I\’ve only gotten 1 ticket (for speeding) in the last 14 years of driving, and my last car \”accident\” was in 1995. Of course, I stopped driving last August when I went car-free (I\’ve driven a car twice since then, and only for a day each time), so I guess I can\’t really count this year.
Anyway, I was neither the best nor the worst of the teenage drivers in Detroit in the late 80s, and I doubt that the situation has improved much in the last couple of decades.
Teenage boys have an unfortunate tendency to think with their hormones, it\’s what makes them such horrible drivers. Teen boys need propaganda aimed at causing them to think that (in THIER eyes) depending on a motor to travel makes them weak, feminine, gay.
\”Real men can be their own motors\” or \”Girls say yes to boys who say no to cars\”