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Introduction
Funding Sources & Major Contributors
Research
2009-10 Annual Report
Centers of Excellence Brochure (PDF: 2 MB)
"Owner's Manual" (PDF: 2 MB)
AAA Foundation CEO Bio
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers throughout North America. Per mile driven, sixteen-year-old drivers are killed in crashes at well over five times the rate of drivers in their thirties, forties, or fifties. This is the primary motivating force behind our robust program in teen driver safety research.
Our teen driver safety research program seeks to foster a holistic approach to keeping new drivers safe throughout their first days, weeks, months, and years on the road. This includes developing training resources for new drivers including our award-winning driver-ZED, evaluating driver education programs to identify the most effective program components and delivery techniques, conducting research with the aim of helping parents to become more effective mentors to their new teenage drivers, and evaluating the impact of laws and programs aimed at keeping teen drivers safe.
For example, in 2007 the Foundation published its landmark evaluation of the effectiveness of graduated driver licensing programs—programs designed to grant more privileges and responsibilities to teens as they gain more driving experience—and found that states with the most comprehensive of these programs saw nearly 40 percent declines in the involvement of 16-year-olds in serious crashes. This research has been instrumental in several states subsequently strengthening their graduated driver licensing legislation, undoubtedly saving precious young lives and sparing many new drivers the life-changing experience of injuring or killing a friend or another innocent victim in crashes resulting from new drivers driving under conditions that they were not ready for.
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