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Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, killing more than 5,000 each year. More than 7,000 people nationwide were killed in crashes involving teen drivers in 2007, government data show. More than 3,000 of these deaths were teen drivers, and more than 250,000 teen drivers were injured. Two articles in the October, 2009 edition of Pediatrics magazine offer advice to parents to help reduce teen driving accidents. First, do not give your teen his or own car. Second, be involved and authoritative; give clear driving safety rules and offer support. The studies show that its not just how well you may teach your child to drive; a proper attitude must be instilled. Primary access of novice teen drivers to vehicles is highly prevalent in the United States. This practice is a dangerous norm, because primary access is associated with risky driving behaviors. Among these drivers, 25 percent had been involved in

This past summer a bill was introduced in the United States Senate to require states to adopt federally set minimum penalties for writing, sending, or reading text messages while driving. The bill requires states to pass laws prohibiting text messaging or forfeit 25 percent of highway financing, which would amount to losing hundreds of millions in federal transportation funds. States would have two years to comply and could recover lost funds once they passed acceptable laws. A companion bill has been introduced in the House. The Senate bill is called the Alert Drivers Act of 2009, and is also known as the Avoiding Life-Endangering and Reckless Texting by Drivers Act of 2009. The American Medical Association recently identified cell phone texting while driving as a public health risk. The bill followed several high-profile crashes involving text messaging. In September 2008,

While driving on the highways in the New York metropolitan area, have you noticed that when the overhead highway electronic traffic signs have no traffic jams to report, they warn that only hands-free devices can legally be used? While happy to not have to deal with a traffic jam, who knew that this seemingly friendly advice was false - that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) withheld data showing that drivers talking on their cell phones experience the same potentially deadly distraction whether they are using a handheld device or hands-free technology. Records obtained by consumer advocacy groups Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety show that the government has known of the hands-free risk since 2003. The research showed that the problem is the conversation itself, not the device used to hear it, according to a Public Citizen press release. The conversation causes inattention blindness, a cognitive state that slows a drivers re