Students at Stansbury High School are climbing onboard an insurance company’s initiative to increase safe driving behavior and reduce teen automobile crash deaths.
Stansbury High School students signed and raised a #GetThereSafe flag during school on Friday.
The #GetThereSafe flag is part of Allstate Insurance Company’s effort to encourage safe driving habits among teen drivers.
The #GetThereSafe program encourages teens to focus on limiting three risky driving behaviors that cause most teen driving related deaths: speeding, failure to wear a seatbelt, and distractions caused by teen passengers.
“Simple actions like buckling up, slowing down and limiting the number of friends in the car can save lives,” said Mike Nunley, Allstate agency owner in Stansbury Park. “Through #GetThereSafe, we can educate students about the main causes of teen crashes and inspire them to be safer drivers.”
Nationally, car crashes are the number one killer of American teens, causing more teen deaths each year than homicide, suicide and cancer, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Nearly 50 percent of teen drivers and 61 percent of teen passengers in fatal car crashes were not wearing a seat belt, while speeding is a factor in one out of every three teen fatal accidents, according to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
A major distraction for teen drivers is teen passengers, according to the Allstate Foundation. Adding one passenger to a car with a teen driver increases the fatal car crash risk by 44 percent. Add a second passenger and the risk factor doubles. With three or more passengers the fatal crash risk quadruples.
Cellphones may be a distraction for teen drivers, however more parents than teens use cellphones while driving, according to a study by the Allstate Foundation.
Through #GetThereSafe, Allstate has joined with Discovery Education, a producer of digital education media, to provide a variety of resources for teen drivers, educators, parents, and insurance agents to increase teen driving safety.
To learn more about the #GetThereSafe program and valuable tips for teen drivers and parents, visit www.AllstateFoundation.org.