Teen auto insurance

Lower teen auto insurance rates? Car crashes for young drivers

It is a big concern to the insurance industries for maintaining low teen auto insurance quote. Parents beware: Giving in to teens’ demands for their own cars can have dangerous consequences, new research suggests.

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Teenagers with their own cars or free use of one are much more likely to get in crashes than those who share a car. And crashes are much less common among teens whose parents set clear driving safety rules.

The findings are in two studies by researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and funded by State Farm Insurance Co. They are in the October issue of Pediatrics.

The researchers say the findings can help parents keep their kids from becoming a grim statistic: Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, killing more than 5,000 each year.

Getting a driver’s license and car are often viewed as rite of passage for U.S. teens, and many parents underestimate the risks.

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.

“With teen drivers, you have to recognize that it’s a public health issue,” said Dr. Jeffrey Weiss, a Phoenix pediatrician who co-wrote an American Academy of Pediatrics report on teen drivers.

The 2006 report encourages parents to highlight the seriousness of driving privileges by requiring teens to sign driving contracts promising to abide by safety rules.

The new research shows that kind of hands-on approach pays off.

“Families need to know that driving is different” from other steps toward independence,said Dr. Flaura Koplin Winston, the study’s lead author. “Just at the time their teen is pulling away, they need to get back involved to spare them heartache.”

The research is based on a nationally representative survey of more than 5,500 teens in grades nine through 11. Students at 68 high schools answered questionnaires in 2006.

More than 2,000 students who reported driving on their own were the focus of one study; 70 percent said they had their own cars or were the main drivers of cars they used.

Winston said it’s alarming that so many kids have their own cars or feel that they have free use of one. She said that freedom can lead to “a sense of entitlement about driving” that may make them less cautious.

Among these “main” drivers, 25 percent had been involved in crashes, versus just 10 percent of teens who shared driving access. Winston said the lower crash rate doesn’t reflect less driving time, but is likely due to having to ask for the car keys, which helps parents monitor their kids’ driving.

It is indeed a challenge for the parents to give a car and but to teach their teens to ensure the safety while driving and get them cheap teen auto insurance quote. Check it out.

Teen auto insurance

Teen auto insurance

Daniel: What are the reasons of restrictions of Graduated Driver License? How is this related to my car insurance?

Response: Daniel, Graduated Drivers License (GDL) has three main restrcitions : number of passangers you carry, night driving and speed. Now taking into consideration the restrictions, first the number of passengers. When teenage drivers transport passengers there is a greatly increased crash risk, according to a March 2008 NHTSA report. When there are multiple passengers, the crash risk is 3 to 5 times greater than when driving alone. In California, Massachusetts and Virginia, passenger restrictions have reduced crashes among 16-year-old drivers. Crash involvement per 1,000 16-year-old drivers fell from 1.07 to 0.85 in California after passenger restrictions were passed. The reduction was from 0.88 to 0.61 in Massachusetts and from 1.41 to 1.10 in Virginia. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm released a study in 2007 that found that children are safer when riding in a vehicle with a teen driver who is their sibling rather than a teen driver who is not related.The study showed that children’s risk of crash injury when the teen driver is a sibling is 40 percent lower. Some states allow teen drivers to have only family members as passengers.

Secondly fatality and injury crash rates for 16-year-old drivers were 20 percent lower in states with nighttime and passenger restrictions than in jurisdictions that lacked these provisions, according to a study released in 2006 by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Study conducted by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF), found that twice as many teens who had not been involved in a crash reported never having violated their state’s passenger restriction provision, as opposed to teens who had been involved in a crash.

Third, according to a 2005 study by National Institute of Health and Westat it was found that, when teens drive other teens, they tend to drive faster than other motorists and leave less distance between their vehicles and the vehicles in front of them. They speed more frequently when there are other teens in vehicles, especially males.

If restrictions are in place the accidents are prevented and thus the teen auto insurance rate is reduced. Obtain cheap auto insurance.

Teen auto insurance