Cullen Browder of WRAL TV interviews Stuart Lamm, president of GPS Mobile Soluitons, on how wireless technologies such as GPS Tracking Devices and Text Blocking devices are providing parents with the tools to enforce safe driving habits for teenage drivers.
Motor Vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, accounting for more than one in three deaths in this age group. In 2009, eight teens ages 16 to 19 died every day from motor vehicle injuries. In fact, about 3000 teens in the United States aged 15 to 19 were killed and more than 350,000 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor vehicle accidents.
GPS Mobile Soluitions provides a plug n play GPS tracking device that gives parents immediate notification of a teen's unsafe driving habits such as speeding, rapid acceleration, rounding curves at unsafe speeds, harsh breaking and accident notification. In addition, our technology will provide real-time location information and engine diagnostics. In short, this technology will provide the parent with the ability to help a new teen driver safely navigate the dangerous, early years of driving.
The risk of serious, even fatal automobile accidents are highest among teenage drivers than any other age group. Parents often think they can only lecture their kids and hold their breath but GPS Mobile Solutions has a technology that will provide parents immediate notification via email or text message when a teenage driver is exceeding pre-set standards. Our GPS teen tracker will alert parents when pre-set speeds are exceeded, rapid acceleration, harsh braking, and in the event of vehicle's involvement in accident. This information will help parent to monitor teen driving habits through this difficult learning period.
GPS Mobile Solutions offers the Go5 GPS unit that simply plugs into the vehicle's OBDII port. In addition to driving patterns of teen, location of vehicle at all times, this device will also alert parents if the vehicle is developing engine problems through our engine diagostics module.
Teen Drivers - Did you know?
1. Traffic crashes are the number one cause of death among children and young adults.
2. Exceeding the posted speed limit or driving at an unsafe speed is the most common error in fatal accidents.
3. About 30% of crashes killing young drivers involve alcohol.
4. More than 1,000 young drivers lose their lives every year in crashes because they were alcohol impaired.
Facts to consider about teenage driving...
Teenage Driver Crash Risk Factors
The traffic accident rates for 16- to 19-year old drivers are higher than those for any other age group. What causes teenage drivers to be such risky drivers? The following is a list of their primary risk factors.
Poor hazard detection
The ability to detect hazards in the driving environment depends upon perceptual and information-gathering skills and involves properly identifying stimuli as potential threats. It takes time for young novice drivers to acquire this ability.
Low risk perception
Risk perception involves subjectively assessing the degree of threat posed by a hazard and one's ability to deal with the threat. Young novice drivers tend to underestimate the crash risk in hazardous situations and overestimate their ability to avoid the threats they identify.
Risk Taking
Teenagers tend to take more risks while driving partly due to their overconfidence in their driving abilities. Young novice drivers are more likely to engage in risky behaviors like speeding, tailgating, running red lights, violating traffic signs and signals, making illegal turns, passing dangerously, and failure to yield to pedestrians.
Not wearing seat belts
Teenagers tend to wear safety belts less often than older drivers. Why?
Lack of skill
Novice teenage drivers have not yet completely mastered basic vehicle handling skills and safe-driving knowledge they need to drive safely.
Alcohol and drugs
Driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs is a common cause of serious crashes, especially fatal ones, involving teenage drivers. Teenagers who drink and drive are at much greater risk of serious crashes than are older drivers with equal concentrations of alcohol in their blood.
Carrying passengers
For teenagers, the risk of being in a crash increases when they transport passengers-the fatality risk of drivers aged 16-17 years is 3.6 times higher when they are driving with passengers than when they are driving alone, and the relative risk of a fatal crash increases as the number of passengers increases. Passengers who are age peers may distract the teen drivers and encourage them to take more risks, especially for young males riding with young male drivers.
Night driving
The per mile crash rate for teenaged drivers is 3 times higher after 9:00 pm during the day. This is because the task of driving at night is more difficult; they have less experience driving at night than during the day; they are more sleep deprived, and/or because teenage recreational driving, which often involves alcohol, is more likely to occur at night.