Started in 2002, Teens in the Driver Seat® is the first peer-to-peer program for teens that focuses solely on traffic safety and addresses all major risks for high school students.
Teens help shape the program and are responsible for implementing it and educating their peers and parents; Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) provides the science, guidance and project resources.
Teens in the Driver Seat® and Teens in the Driver Seat Junior High is available schools in several states and we are currently looking for other states to apply to begin the program.
Teens in the Driver Seat® is helping make a difference.
Texas has taken great strides in saving teen lives and Teens in the Driver Seat® is proud to be part of the solution. In Texas, the number of teen drivers involved in fatal crashes has dropped nearly 70 percent since 2002.
Teens in the Driver Seat® program surveys show risk awareness levels increasing by up to 200 percent. Cell phone use at Teens in the Driver Seat® program schools has been shown to drop by 30 percent, and seat belt use has gone up by over 14 percent.
A rigorous 20-county control group analysis for Texas indicates the program results in an average decrease of 14.6 percent in injury and fatal crashes (total) where the program has been sustained for three or more years.
Almost 1,000 schools now have implemented the Teens in the Driver Seat® program, reaching nearly one million teens. The program has also been deployed in 37 states outside Texas.
Because of the positive results shown in numerous studies, TDS has won over 20 awards (including six national awards) and has been recognized as a national best-practice model four times by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Governors Highway Safety Association, and the National Safety Council.
Learn more and find resources at t-driver.com>