New Hampshire Recognizes Teen Driver Safety Week
Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at 09:48AM Concord, NH - The New Hampshire Departments of Safety (DOS), Health and
Human Services (DHHS), and Transportation (DOT) are teaming up this year to
raise awareness of safe driving behaviors during National Teen Driver
Safety Week, October 14-20, 2012. Now in its sixth year, this federally
designated week’s goal is to encourage the communication of the positive
benefits of safe driving.
“Keeping our teens safe is paramount,” states Dr. José Montero, Director of
DHHS’s Division of Public Health Services. “In 2009, there were 1,648
adolescents who were treated in the State’s emergency departments due to
motor vehicle crashes. Eighty teens were hospitalized in that same period.
This is a significant issue that all of us must pay attention to.”
Encouraging positive aspects of safe driving includes wearing a seat belt.
In the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 10.7% of students answered that
they “rarely or never wore a seatbelt when riding in a car driven by
someone else.” According to the New Hampshire Highway Safety Agency’s 2011
annual seatbelt survey, adolescent drivers are less likely to buckle up
than adult drivers: 57.1% compared with 71.2%. There are efforts in the
State to help increase the usage of seatbelts amongst teens.
We’re working with teens in several different programs,” said Howard
Hedegard, Highway Safety Specialist at the Injury Prevention Center at
Dartmouth. “However, all of the programs encourage teens to be the good
driver that they want to be. Positively structured learning experiences
have a much greater chance of motivating people to choose safe, smart
behaviors. In fact one school that had continuous programming for over a
year, teen seat belt use increased from 64% in a student led observational
survey to 85%. That’s incredible.”
The public–private collaborative New Hampshire Strategic Highway Safety
Plan, “Driving Toward Zero Deaths” supports additional ways teens can be
the driver that they want to be. The plan supports Graduated Drivers
Licensing and increased community and parental involvement encouraging safe
teen driving practices.
“In New Hampshire our graduated driver licensing system does have a youth
operator license for drivers between the ages of 16 and 20,” said
Christopher Clement, Commissioner of DOT. “This license restricts nighttime
driving (between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.) for those under age 18 and limits
the number of passengers a teen driver may have in his or her vehicle for
the first six months of licensure. Taking care to follow these rules will
help the teen driver keep himself or herself safe.”
“It’s interesting to note that teens ages 16 through 20 were involved in
64% of the crashes during the last five-year period,” said John Barthelmes,
Commissioner of DOS, “but they only make up about 6% of the total licensed
drivers. This discrepancy makes this an issue of the utmost importance and
one that we focus on all the time. However, this week, we’re paying it
special attention.” According to the Department of Safety’s crash
statistics, the majority of fatal crashes involving teens were due to
speed.
For more information about National Teen Driver Safety Week, visit the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website at
www.nhtsa.gov/Teen-Drivers or
www.teendriversource.org/more_pages/page/get_behind_national_teen_driver_safety_week_ntdsw_/teen
for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Research Institute. For
information on New Hampshire’s driving license requirements, visit
www.nh.gov/safety/divisions/dmv/driver-licensing/index.htm . New Hampshire’s
Driving Towards Zero website can also be accessed at www.nhdtz.com