Every time we talk about the complexities involved in teenage driving. But, today we are going to talk about the impact of education, enforcement and technical innovation that are instrumental in reducing the number of traffic accident fatalities among teenagers!

Yes, government authorities reported that graduated licensing programs, strict enforcement of drunken driving and safety (seat belts) laws are having a significant effect in reducing fatal accidents among young drivers. Various programs by Congress always engage in addressing serious issues like driver distraction on the road. As part of the National Teen Driver Safety Week,  the “Ride Like A Friend” campaign focuses on increasing awareness of how teen passengers distract drivers, which is the leading cause of road accidents. Studies say that the presence of one passenger doubles the fatal crash risk for a teen driver, which increases with each additional passenger.

Technology is also playing an important role in reducing number of fatal road accidents! Today, most automakers offer modern features that help drivers avoid accidents or help making these less severe even if they do occur. As automotive expert, Samir Salman said “Already, we have saved thousands of lives in this country and billions of dollars by making vehicles more crash-worthy and improving enforcement and education.”

Collision Mitigation Braking is one of the many technologies that has contributed a lot to safety revolution. This system uses radar and in-car cameras and monitors traffic ahead and accordingly activates the brakes automatically if a collision looks imminent. Apart from this, lane departure and blind-spot warning systems are two modern auto features that use in-car cameras in order to help drivers avoid accidents. Both the systems give audible and visual warnings, when a vehicle tends to drift out of its lane or begins to change lanes with another vehicle on its way.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, various new crash-avoidance technologies may prevent or reduce the severity of 3.4 million accidents per year and can save as many as 20,700 lives for a 60 percent reduction in highway fatalities.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.