A Peer-to-Peer Safety Program to Reduce Teen Driver Crashes in Texas

On average, a teenager is injured every 15 minutes in motor vehicle crashes in the United States. Most of these incidents involve typical factors such as speeding, talking on cell phones, nighttime driving, teen passengers, low seat belt use and alcohol impairment. While safety practitioners know these risks well, there is a relatively low awareness level of these facts among teens and their parents. This paper describes a pilot program that was developed to increase awareness among teenage drivers regarding these common risk factors using a peer-to-peer approach. Teens provided input on the development of various materials and then delivered the message to fellow teens. To measure the impact on awareness levels, surveys of teens were conducted before and after implementation of the pilot project at both the school where the program was deployed, as well as a neighboring school that served as a control group. A statistical analysis of the survey results indicated that the project had a significantly positive effect on increasing awareness of key risk factors in teenage driving crashes. Further refinements to the approach used in the pilot project should place a greater emphasis on those communication mediums that were identified as being most effective. The analyses conducted in conjunction with the project also revealed that increased education and outreach regarding the graduated driver license law in Texas may be warranted. Language: en