Riding In Cars With Girls

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t summer, while teaching my niece, 16, to drive, I got my own turbo-charged lesson about the teen relationship to the road. In my dotage, I had forgotten the driving principles that every teen seems to live by--for instance, that fast is really good, especially when you're going around a corner. A rearview mirror works really well for checking out how nice your sunglasses look, and every maneuver is enhanced if you can casually dangle your left elbow out the window. After spending two months riding shotgun with a teen, I completely understood why my friend Nancy facetiously handed out bicycle helmets and pillows to young passengers when her oldest daughter first got her license.

Last week the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released data showing that teen girls are on their way to achieving parity with their male peers when it comes to being unsafe drivers. According to the statistics, boys still crash their cars more frequently than girls (210.3 crashes for every 1,000 licensed drivers), but while the crash rate for boys has dropped, the crash rate for 16-year-old girls has risen to 175.2 per 1,000 drivers, up from 160.1 in 1990. The increase is due to the fact that the number of girls licensed to drive is up 70% since 1975. These statistics are reflected in the fatality rate for girls, which is up 4% from 1990, even though the fatality rate for 15- to 20-year-olds overall fell 11%.

Statistics clearly point out how dangerous 16-year-old drivers of either sex are. According to Allan Williams, the chief scientist for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the crash risk of a 16-year-old is more than twice that of 18- or 19-year-olds. The reasons are simple: immaturity and lack of driving experience. Williams points to another frightening fact: whenever two or more teens are in a car together, the already high crash risk shoots up. Cars with two or more teens are four times as likely to crash as are cars with teens driving solo.

Phil Berardelli, author of the helpful guide Safe Young Drivers, has spent seven years researching teen driving, ever since an accident killed four teens in his area. Berardelli advocates the idea of "graduated licensing" programs as a way to ease into driving. Thirty-five states now have such programs in place, offering 16-year-olds a provisional license that curtails driving privileges--allowing only daytime driving, for example, or limiting the number of passengers. Eighteen states mandate that teens can't drive with other teens for the first six months on the road, the most dangerous period for young drivers.

Berardelli points out that some parents are so worn out from driving their teens around that they just hand over the keys as soon as their kids get licenses. He suggests that parents institute their own graduated-driving program. Berardelli and other safety advocates say parents should expose their kids to up to 100 hours of supervised driving, in all kinds of weather and highway situations, before these teens are permitted to get their license. "Teens who would do anything to avoid a parent's company don't seem to mind being seen with one--as long as the kid is in the driver's seat. So have your kids drive you everywhere--to the store and on trips," he says. Safety advocates also recommend placing young drivers in "big boring cars."

There is one piece of good news about girl teen drivers: their skills tend to improve more quickly than those of boys. By the time girls reach 19, their crash rates fall, and they are less of a menace on the road.

For more on teens and driving, go to safeyoungdrivers.com or drivehomesafe.com