Liberty Mutual Launches Interactive Website with Driving Safety Training Course, Sample Licensing Test Questions and Other Tools to Help Parents and Teen Drivers Get Road Ready BOSTON, July 9
BOSTON, July 9 /PRNewswire/ -- A new poll of teens by Liberty Mutual
Insurance reveals that the summer months are more popular than any other
season for young drivers ages 16-18 to obtain their learner's permit
(35 percent) and take their driver's test (33 percent).
To help parents and new teen drivers develop safe and responsible driving
habits, Liberty Mutual and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) today
launched an interactive teen driving resource at
http://www.LibertyMutualTeenDriving.com/ with extensive materials such as a
defensive driving course, sample driver's licensing exam questions from every
state, a parent/teen safe driving contract, and a crash safety kit.
"Getting your driver's license is a rite of passage," says Dave Melton,
director of Transportation Technical Consulting Services at the Liberty Mutual
Research Institute for Safety in Hopkinton, Mass. "It's an exciting time for
teenagers, and we want to celebrate their achievement while also urging
parents to be involved in preparing for their teen's new responsibility,
particularly during the summer months when there is more risk involved --
especially at night and on weekends."
And the risk in summer is real: the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration reported teen fatalities from motor vehicle crashes in 2006
spiked to 558 in July and 484 in August, as compared to 400 fatalities in
January and 402 in February.
Why the Website Is for Parents
From driving basics to defensive driving tactics,
www.LibertyMutualTeenDriving.com offers parents clear direction and useful
tips for talking to their teens about driving. A new parent/teen contract,
developed by SADD, facilitates this discussion and enables parents and teens
to customize their own consequences for risky driving behaviors and rewards
for specific safe driving behaviors, such as wearing seat belts, observing the
speed limit, and reducing driving distractions from cell phones, text
messaging and other passengers.
"It's not enough for parents to say 'Drive safely' when they turn over the
car keys to their teen," says Penny Wells, president and executive director of
SADD. "Parents should not be reluctant to set clear expectations and enforce
consequences around driving behavior, because our past research shows that
teens drive more responsibly when their parents take these steps. The new
parent/teen contract on the www.LibertyMutualTeenDriving.com website is a
terrific resource for families to frame that discussion and agree upon their
rules."
Indeed, a 2006 SADD/Liberty Mutual study shows that teens whose parents
set expectations and follow through with clear consequences about breaking the
law while driving are less likely to have driven under the influence of
alcohol (16 percent versus 29 percent), marijuana (14 percent versus
18 percent) or other drugs (6 percent versus 11 percent) than are teens whose
parents do not follow through with consequences.
These are some of the other website elements for parents:
-- A state-by-state listing of teen driving laws;
-- Research and data about specific behaviors that put teens at risk
behind the wheel;
-- Car safety ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and
the Highway Loss Data Institute that include car theft, injury, and collision
reports and statistics; and,
-- An accident kit available for $9.95 that includes a disposable camera,
flashlight, glowstick, and a helpful guide to collect accident details and
information.
Why the Website Is for Teen Drivers
Liberty Mutual's new website exclusively offers the National Safety
Council's Defensive Driving Course, the world's most widely used safe driving
course designed to help teens prepare for their driver's test and improve
their driving skills. The course is available for $19.95 -- a 50 percent
savings off the regular price -- when purchased at
www.LibertyMutualTeenDriving.com.
And, as teens get ready to take their driver's license exam this summer,
they can take practice test questions from their own state, such as:
-- (Illinois) True or False: When a motorist is turning right and a
bicyclist is approaching on the right, let the bicyclist go through the
intersection first before making a right turn. Answer: True.
-- (Massachusetts) When does the law require you to use your headlights?
Answer: From one-half hour after sunset to one-half hour before sunrise.
-- (California) What is the speed limit if you are approaching a railroad
crossing with no warning devices and are unable to see 400 feet down the
tracks in one direction? Answer: 15 miles per hour.
Other website elements for teen drivers include:
-- A series of StreetSmart videos from Liberty Mutual and the National
Safety Council that take teens through driving scenarios and instruct them on
how to avoid a crash, and how to identify driving hazards on city roads,
suburban roads and highways. In one video, teens hear from other teens about
their own driving behaviors and attitudes -- safe and unsafe.
-- Interactive, step-by-step instructions on how to parallel park, how to
jumpstart your car, or how to perform simple car maintenance like checking
your oil.
-- Helpful hints for everyday circumstances, such as what to do if you
have a foggy windshield (The answer: Turn the air conditioner switch on and
switch vents to "outside" air).
About the Survey
On behalf of Liberty Mutual, Ipsos Public Affairs conducted an online
Omnibus survey from June 24-26, 2008, with 500 respondents ages 16-18 years.
The survey results cited pertain only to those teens who know when they
obtained or plan to obtain their permit/license; and are weighted for gender,
age and region and matched to targets from the most recent current population
survey provided by the U.S. Census. The margin of error is +/-4.4% with a
95 percent confidence level.
Guideline, Inc. was commissioned to conduct the 2006 SADD/Liberty Mutual
survey with high school students on a wide range of attitudes and behaviors
relevant to teens. The reported results focus exclusively on the responses of
903 teens with a driver's license from a national sample of 26 high schools in
April and May, 2006. The margin of error is +/- 3.3% with a 95 percent
confidence level.
About Liberty Mutual Group
"Helping people live safer, more secure lives" since 1912, Boston-based
Liberty Mutual Group is a diversified global insurer and sixth-largest
property and casualty insurer in the U.S. based on 2007 direct written
premium. Liberty Mutual Group ranks 94th on the Fortune 500 list of largest
U.S. corporations, based on 2007 revenue. The company has over 41,000
employees located in more than 900 offices throughout the world.
The eighth-largest auto and home insurer in the U.S., Liberty Mutual
(www.libertymutual.com) sells full lines of coverage for automobile,
homeowners, valuable possessions, personal liability, and individual life
insurance. The company is an industry leader in affinity partnerships,
offering car and home insurance to employees and members of more than 10,000
companies, credit unions, professional associations and alumni groups.
About Students Against Destructive Decisions
For more than 27 years, SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) has
been committed to empowering young people to lead education and prevention
initiatives in their schools and communities. Founded as Students Against
Driving Drunk in 1981, SADD has become the nation's preeminent peer-to-peer
youth education, prevention, and activism organization, with nearly 10,000
chapters in middle schools, high schools, and colleges nationwide. SADD now
highlights prevention of many destructive behaviors that are harmful to young
people, including underage drinking, substance abuse, risky and impaired
driving, and teen violence and suicide. For more information about SADD,
visit sadd.org.
SOURCE Liberty Mutual Group
