About Keeping Young Drivers Safe

The Keeping Young Drivers Safe Web site is based on research from an alliance of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, and State Farm Insurance Companies. This academic-industry alliance also created the Partners for Child Passenger Safety study, the world's largest study of children in crashes. These institutions have joined together to reduce death and injury from young driver-related crashes through scientific research and outreach.

Motor vehicle crashes remain the number one cause of death among teens in the United States. Teen drivers (ages 16 to 19) die at four times the rate of adult drivers (ages 25 to 69).

The alliance has formed a multidisciplinary Young Driver Research Initiative (YDRI) Expert Panel. Its findings were published in a special 11-article supplement called The Science of Safe Driving Among Adolescents in the June 2006 issue of Injury Prevention.

In early 2006, the alliance conducted the first National Young Driver Survey to learn how teens perceive and experience driving. The survey's weighted data represent 10.2 million 9th through 11th graders in the United States. The collected results are published in Driving: Through the Eyes of Teens a.

The Young Drivers Research Initiative is a project carried out by researchers and outreach professionals at The Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The alliance's full body of young driver research is available on that site.