Teen deaths due to car crashes dropped significantly over the past decade, owing to an improvement in risky behaviors such as not wearing a seat belt, according to data from the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System Survey.
"The most notable finding is this report is the significant reduction in the number of motor vehicle crashes, which are the leading cause of death among youth in the United States," Howell Wechsler, Ed.D., M.P.H., director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, said in a telebriefing sponsored by the CDC on June 7.
In particular, the percentage of students who said they never or rarely wore seat belts dropped from 26% in 1991 to 8% in 2011, said Dr. Wechsler. In addition, the percentage of students who said they rode in a car with a drunk driver dropped from 40% to 24% between 1991 and 2011, and the percentage who said they had driven while drunk declined from 17% to 8% between 1997 and 2011.
"We would urge clinicians to ... give [their patients] good advice related to distracted driving and texting while driving."
Although these findings are encouraging, this year’s survey results also recognized the role of technology in creating new risky behaviors for teens by including questions about texting or emailing while driving, Dr. Wechsler said.
"For the first time, the use of technology is resulting in new risks," he said. Overall, 1 in 3 students said they had texted or emailed while driving within the past 30 days, and 1 in 6 students reported being the victims of cyberbullying during the past 12 months.
Texting or emailing while driving is especially dangerous, because it takes the drivers’ attention away from driving more often and for longer periods than other distractions, and inexperienced teen drivers are at increased risk for accidents resulting from inattention, Dr. Wechsler said.
"While we are pleased to see improvements in many behaviors related to motor vehicle crashes, naturally we are alarmed by some of the new findings, especially those involving distracted driving," Dr. Wechsler noted. The CDC is developing programs to improve and promote safe driving among teens, but health professionals have a role to play as well, he said.
"We would urge clinicians to counsel their patients and give them good advice related to distracted driving and texting while driving, and to also address the electronic bullying issue," he said.
Additional data from the survey showed no significant reduction in teen smoking and an increase in marijuana use since the last survey in 2009. Data for the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System Survey came from a nationally representative sample of more than 15,000 students in public and private high schools in the United States (MMWR 2012:61;SS-4).
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