After spike in deaths, week focuses on teen driver safety education

DES MOINES — Iowa parents are urged to continue having conversations with their teens about the importance of making the right decisions to be safe behind the wheel.

Genie Clemens, the youth coordinator with the Iowa Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau, says this is National Teen Driver Safety Week.   Clemens says, “We’re observing this week so we can educate teen drivers to be more vigilant in their driving habits and hopefully, make those habits a practice all of the time.”

Clemens says Iowa saw a very unfortunate spike in teen driver fatalities last year.  “In 2018, Iowa lost 29 young drivers between the ages of 14 and 20 in motor vehicle crashes,” Clemens says, “and in 2017, Iowa lost 22 young drivers under the age of 21 in motor vehicle crashes.”

She points to contributing factors like the use of drugs and alcohol, not using seat belts, distracted driving, and not following the rules of the road — especially speeding.  “Any life lost is one too many,” Clemens says. “We want everyone to obey all the traffic laws and make good decisions when driving so we can prevent any loss.”

Nationwide last year, more than 22-hundred people were killed in crashes that involved a teen driver. Of those, more than 750 deaths were the teen drivers themselves. That’s a three-percent increase from the year before.