Tennessee ranks 6th in U.S. in teen driving deaths

By Christina E. Sanchez, The Tennessean

Tennessee remains one of the deadliest states for teen drivers despite an 8-year-old law that limits when they can drive and with how many passengers.

A study of teen fatality rates by the insurance company Allstate showed that Tennessee ranked sixth in the nation for driving deaths and the Nashville region fourth among 50 metropolitan areas in the study.

The study didn't provide rankings over time. State figures on teen driving fatalities show broad fluctuations since 2000 with no trends up or down. The deadliest year this decade was 2002 - 106 deaths one year after the legislature passed the graduated driver's license law.

"We need better driving training," said Kendell Poole of the Governor's Highway Safety Office. "If we had mandatory driver education, we would be able to reduce teen fatalities across the state."

The Allstate America's Teen Driving Hotspots, which was based on 2000-06 numbers and released last month, cited speeding and lack of seat belt use as the most common problems. Tennessee safety officials and researchers can't point to one reason the state outranks others but list factors such as the lack of mandated driver training, poor seat belt use and texting while driving. Tennessee's narrow and winding rural roadways also can be deadly for inexperienced drivers.

Some Tennessee parents are letting their teens know how dangerous the state's roads are for them.

"My dad told me every time I drive, 'one leg is in the grave and one is in jail,'" said Dennis Selimagic, a 16-year-old senior at Hillwood High School. "It's true. If you are not careful, you could end someone's life or ruin your own."

Dennis, who got his license in April, said he doesn't text or talk on the cell phone while he drives, though he does listen to music.

He has watched friends learn the hard way what happens when you are not careful on the road.

"I have one friend who has been in three accidents already, and another one has had two speeding tickets," Dennis said. "Every day is a new experience. Every day there is a new situation."

A flaw in the state's graduated license law was that it didn't mandate driver education to address teens' behaviors and teach them about the risks, said Irwin Goldzweig, an assistant professor in the department of family and community medicine at Meharry Medical College in Nashville.

"Driver education is essential," he said. "It is like kindergarten - you have to have it because it provides the basic essentials."

Florida doesn't mandate driver's education programs either, and three Florida cities - Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville - topped Nashville's teen driver death rate, based on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Behavior change is key

When there is a fatal crash and a teenager is driving, Allstate's report says, that driver is a boy more than two-thirds of the time.

"The young people with the highest risk groups are young men, African-American males, students with academic difficulties, students who drank and drove," said Goldzweig, who oversees a teen driving behavior program for Meharry. "These are the groups we need to reach out to in the community."

Poole said that when he took his position as director of Governor's Highway Safety Office in 2006, there were few, if any, programs targeted at changing teens' behaviors to prevent fatalities.

Now his office sponsors programs at schools to talk about driving decisions and the consequences of drinking and driving.

The program provides an interactive game for students, teaching them how to act quickly in hazardous driving situations, and includes ad campaigns.

"I think it will take a few years to start seeing the impact of those programs," Poole said. "There is definite progress being made in changing driving behavior, but the teen driving population is the most difficult."

Overall, Tennessee driving fatalities have been down the past two years, he said. Teen drivers were involved in 10 fatal crashes in the state as of June 12, compared with 72 in all of last year.

Last year, 1,033 Tennesseans of all ages were killed in traffic accidents.

Congress is looking at making a nationwide graduated driver's license law that could cut federal highway funds to states that failed to implement it.

No decision has been made on the proposal, but it could enforce stricter rules, including making the driving permit age 16 and calling for teen drivers to be off the road by 9 p.m.

That would be more rigid than Tennessee's law, which allows teens to get a learner's permit at 15 and drive until 10 p.m.

Additional Facts
TEEN DRIVER FATALITIES IN TENNESSEE
Numbers include passengers killed in accidents in which teens were driving.
Year | Fatalities
2000 - 89
2001 - 87
2002 - 106
2003 - 87
2004 - 105
2005 - 75
2006 - 91
2007 - 104
2008 - 72
2009 - 10*
*As of June 12.

SOURCE: Tennessee Department of Safety