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Deputy Secretary Barrett: Teen Driving Safety: A National Priority

In the United States, motor vehicle fatalities are the leading cause of death among those ages fifteen to twenty. Approximately 4,000 teens died and 300,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes in 2006. Even though they drive less than other age groups, mile for mile, teenagers are involved in three times as many fatal crashes as all other drivers.

Teens driving on rural roads face a greater challenge. Even though rural roads carry less than half of America’s traffic, they are home to over half of the nation’s vehicular deaths. Worse, the fatality rate for rural crashes is more than twice the fatality rate in urban crashes. For teens, the mix of speeding, not wearing a seat belt, driving while distracted (on cell phones or with other teens in the car), driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, and driving inexperience, often times has a deadly consequence.

As part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Rural Safety Initiative, we have partnered with National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) to develop a new generation of advertising and educational materials to encourage teenagers to drive safely. To do that, we called on the one group in America that actually understands how to talk to teenagers and knows how to get them to do something different….other teenagers.

Last month, I invited six extraordinary teenagers living in rural areas around the U.S. to exchange ideas on new ways to communicate with teens about safer driving by teens. Their enthusiasm and passion for advocating traffic safety issues was clearly apparent. We discussed why teens were not using seat belts each and every time they are in a car, ways to prohibit retailers from selling alcohol to minors, how to better target teen drivers through media and communication campaigns, why teens do not perceive distracted driving (such as text messaging while driving) as a dangerous and also what can be done to better prepare teens through driver education to drive on rural roads which are often gravel instead of paved.

Deputy Secretary Barrett: Responding to Hurricane Gustav

I want to thank the thousands of volunteers and Department of Transportation employees who have pitched in to help evacuate the Gulf Coast, house the 2 million evacuees, and get them back home and rebuild.  Natural disasters always pose major challenges, but this nation is up to the task.

As part of the Federal response to Hurricane Gustav, the Department is making $4 million in emergency relief funds immediately available for Louisiana and Mississippi to help pay for urgent repairs to roads and bridges damaged by floods.  The funds will help the Gulf Coast pay for debris removal and initiate repair contracts.

Secretary Peters has been working with other cabinet agencies and with state governments to ensure a strong response to Gustav, and to the storms looming on the horizon.   She, I, and the Department will continue to do so, and will make more resources available on an as-needed basis.

-Deputy Secretary Barrett