Teens Driving?
By: Maddie Holubik
My Perspective
Teens are getting more and more hurt or even killed while driving. Whether it is texting, drinking or even messing around. Teens do not understand the dangers that involve driving and that it is important to stay safe at every turn. There are teens who are immature and take driving as a privilege rather than a right. Teens need to be going through classes on knowing the rules of the road and driving in a car.
Brain Facts
- A crucial part of the teen’s brain is the area that peers ahead and considers consequences that remains undeveloped.
- The dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex is not fully mature in teens.
- Also why teens often seem more impetuous than adults. In making decisions, they rely more on the parts of their brain that control emotion.
- When a smart, talented and very mature teen does something a parent might call “stupid,” Jay Giedd says, it’s this underdeveloped part of the brain that has most likely failed. “That’s the part of the brain that helps look farther ahead,” he says. “In a sense, increasing the time between impulse and decisions. It seems not to get as good as it’s going to get until age 25.”
Statistics
6 out of 10 teen crashes involve driver distraction.
- 15% interacting with one or more passengers.
- 12% using a cellphone.
- 10% looking at something in the vehicle.
- 9% looking at something outside the vehicle.
- 8% singing/dancing to music.
- 6% grooming
- 6% reaching for an object in the vehicle.
Dangers
- Texting and other distractions
- Friends
- Their own brains
- Inexperience
- Drinking and driving
- Speed and reckless driving
- Stress and fatigue
Report on Teen Driving | Channel One News | 9/15/16
Prevention
- Stay safe behind the wheel by gaining driving skills with a parent or other trusted adult. Avoid risky behaviors, such as not buckling up or driving your many friends around.
- Taking more classes in Divers Ed
- Doing your research what could happen if you do the bad things
- Trust yourself behind the wheel