This report describes the methods, findings, and recommendations by a research team who
conducted research as part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration project for
“Evaluation of a Prototype Safer Teen Car.” The objective of the project was to demonstrate the
practicality and benefits of a prototype “Safer Teen Car” (STC), a system that can provide real-time
driver feedback to teen drivers. The STC is seen as a parent-controlled, in-vehicle, driver feedback
system that may be available as an original equipment feature of future vehicles. This project
developed a prototype STC system that served as the basis for a field evaluation and as a
demonstration unit for stakeholder groups.
Teenage drivers have much higher rates of crash involvement, injury, and fatality than other driver
groups. These rates are exceptionally high for newly licensed drivers and decline rapidly over the
first few months of driving experience, but still remain considerably greater than adult driver rates
for a period of years. The frequency of risky driving acts and of crash involvement is tempered by
the presence of a mature adult passenger in the vehicle with the teen driver. The basis for the
beneficial effects of adult presence is not certain. It may be due to some combination of instructive
feedback and the potential for some form of negative response or sanction. The adult’s influence
may thus address teen driver problems caused by limited skill and experience or by intentional riskrelated
behaviors. The possible benefits appear substantial. After the initial supervised driving phase
of a licensure program, it is not required to have an adult present in the vehicle with a teen driver.
However, advances in intelligent in-vehicle technology make it possible for the vehicle to monitor
various aspects of driver behavior and provide some form of feedback to the driver. Thus, the
vehicle itself might serve some of the function of an adult supervisor and help mitigate the teen
driver crash problem. NHTSA funded a project titled “An Exploration of Vehicle-Based Monitoring
of Novice Teenage Drivers” to examine potential approaches for mitigating teen crash risk using invehicle
technology. The results indicated that a variety of feedback strategies were feasible and
promising and that current technologies could address the key behavioral factors in teen crashes
(Lerner et al., 2010).
This project employed vehicle-based sensing to provide real-time feedback to teen drivers. It
specifically did not include “reporting” programs, in which driver performance data are summarized
and transmitted to parents or others for review and use in coaching the teen. Rather, the focus was
on direct, immediate feedback to the driver and/or some adaptation of vehicle response (e.g., cutoff
of the infotainment system or speed limitation).