All posts by Michael Mercadante

Michael Mercadante is a Driving Instructor/Driving Rehabilitation Specialist with more than a decade of experience in traffic safety research and education.

New CHOP Study Pinpoints Causes of Teen Crashes

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and State Farm Insurance Companies recently published new research that pinpoints the most common errors teen drivers make that lead to a serious crash, and they aren’t the errors you think.

Researchers analyzed a nationally-representative federal database of more than 800 crashes involving teen drivers and identified a few common “critical errors” that are often one of the last in a chain of events leading up to a crash.  Seventy-five percent of these crashes were due to a critical teen driver error.  The two biggest reasons:

  • 42% of teen crashes were caused by poorly-developed safety threat awareness or risk assessment skills
  • 20% of teen crashes were caused by distractions

The researchers noted that environmental conditions, such as poor weather, vehicle malfunction, aggressive driving, or physical impairments such as drowsy driving were not primary factors in most crashes.

This study helps dispel the myth that most teen crashes are due to aggressive driving or thrill-seeking,” said Allison Curry, PhD, lead author and a researcher at CHOP’s Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP). “Promoting safe driving skills is as important as preventing problem behaviors.”

Click here to read the full press release from CHOP and State Farm.

Australia’s DUI Campaign Pulls No Punches

In 1989, Australia’s Transport Accident Commission (TAC) began airing television commercials featuring brutal collision footage in an effort to battle their DUI problem.  The effort has clearly helped – the annual death toll is now half what it was when the ads began.  Check out this compelling video, a haunting montage of 20 years of their ads, set to REM’s “Everybody Hurts”.

Wretches and Jabberers Special Screening

Tracy Thresher and Larry Bissonnette visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photograph courtesy of Douglas Biklen

This April, the Autism Society and AMC Theatres have teamed up to bring the new film Wretches & Jabberers to 40 cities in a special limited release. Wretches & Jabberers is a ground-breaking documentary about two men with autism who embark on a global quest to change attitudes about disability, intelligence and communication.  The film’s stars, self-advocates Tracy Thresher, 42, and Larry Bissonnette, 52, have limited speech and type to communicate. Growing up, people presumed they had intellectual disabilities and they were excluded from typical schooling. They faced lives of social isolation in institutions or adult disability centers. When, as adults, they learned to communicate by typing, it dramatically changed their lives.

See it locally on Saturday, April 2 at noon at the AMC Neshaminy 24 in Philadelphia.

We are spreading the word about this film because it highlights the real lives of adults living with autism. Today, many individuals with developmental disabilities are facing a crisis. For example, Tracy is homeless and sleeps in a different place each night. Projected government budget cuts mean the already scarce services and supports provided by Medicaid are even more vulnerable. On the other hand, the film portrays the potential of people with autism as Tracy and Larry show audiences around the world that they are “the perfect example of intelligence working out itself in a much different way.”

This exceptional film is making one stop in a theater near you in April. This is a huge opportunity to raise awareness about the issues faced by adults with autism and other disabilities today. We appreciate AMC Theatres for providing this very rare opportunity for an independent documentary to have such a long run in large mainstream movie theaters. AMC is generously donating 10% of ticket sales to the Autism Society to commemorate Autism Awareness Month. Please visit www.amctheatres.com/wretchesandjabberers to buy presale tickets.

Our goal is to show our dedication and pride, fill theaters, increase awareness and support Tracy and Larry’s efforts by sharing their story with the world. This film has the power to make people pay attention to the critical issues faced by others like Tracy and Larry, and to acknowledge that everyone deserves respect and that we should always “presume competence,” which is evident if we just stop and listen.

We hope you are able to attend one of the showings. Please also help us spread the word by sharing this information with all of your e-mail lists, friends, families and colleagues, and encourage them to go see Wretches and Jabberers at a theater near them this April. The listing of theater locations and dates follows. You can watch the movie trailer or find more information at the Wretches and Jabberers website http://www.wretchesandjabberers.org, and don’t forget, you can pre-order tickets at www.amctheatres.com/wretchesandjabberers. Working together, we can change lives!

Fatal Intersection Crashes Declining

A new study issued by the National Safety Council reports that fatal crashes at intersections with traffic lights decreased by 17% and fatal crashes at intersections involving red-light running decreased by 27% from 2005 to 2009.

The study analyzed fatal crash data in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, using statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“This report shows that we are making large strides as a nation in reducing crashes at intersections,” said Janet Froetscher, president and CEO of the National Safety Council.  “However, despite the improvement there were still 12,396 fatal crashes at intersections with traffic lights, including 4,394 fatal intersection crashes involving red-light running during that five year period. While we are making progress, the 13,266 fatalities from these crashes remind us that we have much more to do. Each of us should consider these statistics and the measures we can take to protect ourselves, our families and our communities.”

Crash Fatalities Drop In 2010

The National Safety Council announced today that approximately 34,700 motor vehicle fatalities occurred in 2010. This marks a 3 percent decline from 2009 and the fourth consecutive year fatalities have decreased. Based on motor vehicle fatality trends of past recessions, NSC believes the present decline is partly a result of the poor economy. Fourth-quarter 2010 data reflected a slight increase in fatalities, and NSC fears as the economy continues to rebound fatalities may rise.

“As encouraging as it is to see fatalities decreasing on our nation’s roads, the 2010 rate of decrease is less than a third of the previous year’s decrease,” said Janet Froetscher, president and CEO of the National Safety Council. “We must remain vigilant in addressing roadway safety issues where the greatest impact can be made, such as distracted and teen driving. As miles traveled start to rise again from recession lows, we want to ensure the continuance of this downward trend.”

NSC believes improved safety features in vehicles, and greater visibility and enforcement of traffic safety laws – including those related to child passengers, safety belt use, distracted driving, impaired driving and teen driving – also contributed to the decrease.

In addition to devastating human loss, motor vehicle crashes present a significant national cost in lost wages and productivity, medical expenses, administrative expenses, employer costs and property damage. The estimated cost of motor vehicle deaths, injuries and property damage in 2010 was $236.6 billion, a 3 percent decrease from 2009.

NSC Motor Vehicle Fatality Reporting System
Each month, motor vehicle fatality data is supplied to the National Safety Council by traffic authorities in 50 states and the District of Columbia. This data is used to make current year estimates based on the latest final count from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). NSC counts total motor vehicle-related fatalities that occur within a year of the crash, consistent with data compiled from death certificates by the NCHS, and includes those occurring on public highways and private property. This differs from the methods used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The NHTSA method counts traffic fatalities that occur within 30 days of a crash and only those occurring on public highways.

Can Simulators Help Autistic Teens Learn To Drive?

Thanks to a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, researchers at the University of Virginia are now studying the use of virtual reality driving simulators to train and evaluate the skills of teens with Asperger’s and high-functioning autism, both of which are considered autism spectrum disorders.

Driving a car is an important step toward independence for adolescents and young adults. With no legal restrictions on driving with autism spectrum disorder, this study aims to assess and develop driving skills in teens with Asperger’s and high-functioning autism, or HFA, and work around the symptoms that interfere with learning to drive.

“The symptoms of Asperger’s and HFA make learning to drive particularly challenging for individuals with this disorder,” said Ron Reeve, a professor in U.Va.’s Curry School of Education and a licensed clinical and school psychologist, who is the study’s co-investigator. “For example, they may hyper-focus on one aspect of driving and struggle with the multi-tasking required to simultaneously keep the car in the correct lane, maintain an appropriate distance from the car ahead, attend to a changing stoplight or other signal.”

Adolescents with Asperger’s and HFA have a high need for structure and predictability, which may present difficulty when unexpected disruptions break the routine – an almost daily occurrence when one is behind the wheel.

“Their difficulties with motor planning and coordination may interfere with the complexity of simultaneously steering, accelerating, judging time and distance and hazard detection,” Reeve noted.

The benefits of using the virtual reality driving simulator are multifold. The simulator offers safe exposure to challenging defensive driving demands. It also can play back and rehearse challenging maneuvers without the potential human element of getting frightened or frustrated with the driving performance of HFA trainees.

Daniel Cox, professor of behavioral medicine in the School of Medicine and co-principal investigator of the study, has utilized the simulator to effectively teach teens with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder to drive more safely.

The latest study, to begin this summer, will involve 20 HFA teenagers, each with a learner’s permit. Half the teens will receive virtual reality driving simulator training (10 sessions of progressively demanding maneuvers), going from learning how to maintain lane position to adding speed control, then braking, use of mirrors, turn signals, etc. Once the participants have reviewed these maneuvers, they will be applied in progressively more demanding virtual traffic and road conditions.

The other half of the study group will receive whatever training they would normally receive. For example, these teens will potentially receive on-the-road training with parents, driver’s education instructors or even professional driver’s training. Both study groups will be evaluated afterward by qualified, independent driving evaluators who will not know who did and did not receive the virtual reality training.

The study expects to report its findings by the summer of 2012.

“We hope that by controlling the complexities of driving for these teens on the simulator, and by replaying mistakes to provide a safe environment for practice, we can build skills in teen drivers with Asperger’s and high-functioning autism,” Cox said. However, he noted, “Not all individuals with autism spectrum disorders will be able to develop the skills to safely drive a car, and we hope the simulator will also help us determine who is and who is not a good candidate to become an independent driver.”

Source: University of Virginia website