NORTHBROOK, Ill., Oct. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- With a new survey finding four-in-10 (42 percent) parents of teen drivers don't talk to their kids about safe driving on a regular basis, Allstate urges teens to flip the script and spearhead this important conversation with their parents and friends during this week's National Teen Driver Safety Week (Oct. 21 - Oct. 27). Released today to shine a spotlight on how parents view their teens' driving habits, the survey¹ revealed widespread concerns over distractions and speeding — underscoring the importance of empowering young drivers to prioritize roadway safety conversations.

This issue is an especially important one for young people. Whether as passengers or drivers, auto collisions are the No. 1 killer of every single age from 16 to 23². Nonetheless, the Allstate survey revealed parents have a largely rose-colored view of their teens behind the wheel: Two-thirds (68 percent) of parents think their teens are safe drivers, and three-in-four believe their kids rarely engage in unsafe behaviors.

"There's an opportunity here for youth to take charge of this preventable issue, one that's killing their peers at an unfortunate rate," said Ken Rosen, Allstate's chief claims officer. "Instead of being lectured by parents about how to be a safe driver, challenge yourselves, your friends and your role models to practice roadway safety each and every time they get behind the wheel. The most effective way to change driving behavior is through the positive influence of the people closest to you."

With only one-third of parents using technology to actively monitor their teens' driving, the National Teen Driver Safety Week survey also found an opportunity for more families to leverage measurable telematics tools, such as Allstate's Drivewise^®, to provide proof points for safe driving conversations — or to let teens prove to their parents just how safe they are with real-time driving feedback.

Additional highlights from Allstate's National Teen Driver Safety Week survey include:

• Sixty-nine percent of parents who monitor their teen drivers do so through use of a smartphone app. Fifty-nine percent monitor on a daily basis, and 40 percent monitor weekly.
• The highest teen-driver safety concerns were over phone use (64 percent), exceeding the speed limit (50 percent) and being distracted by surroundings (48 percent) or the radio (44 percent)
• Two-thirds (67 percent) of parents think they were safe drivers when they were teens — mirroring the number of parents who think their teen is safe.
• Nine percent of Americans have a teen driver between the ages of 15 and 18.

The National Teen Driver Safety Week survey is a continuation of Allstate's Good Driving Starts Young theme, introduced earlier this year alongside the 2018 Allstate America's Best Drivers Report®³, which ranks the 200 largest cities in America based on collision frequency to determine which have the safest drivers. The 14^th annual report launched in August with youth- and teen-focused safe driving education events in bottom-ranked Best Drivers cities Baltimore and Los Angeles.

Visit The Good Driving Starts Young Facebook page to continue the conversation, and check out The Allstate Blog for safe driving tips.

¹ The National Teen Driver Safety Week survey was conducted by MMR Research Associations in October 2018. The nationally representative omnibus survey was conducted among N=2,008 adults serving as parent or guardian of a teen driver in the same household, ages 15-18.

² Singh, S. (2015, February). Critical reasons for crashes investigated in the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey. (Traffic Safety Facts Crash Stats. Report No. DOT HS 812 115). Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812115 

³ The Allstate America's Best Drivers Report^® is the result of an in-depth examination of company claims data, to determine the likelihood drivers in America's 200 largest cities will experience a vehicle collision compared to the national average. According to Allstate claims data, the average driver in the U.S will experience one collision every 10 years. This year, Allstate researchers analyzed property damage claims reported during the two-year period of January 2015 to December 2016. The report uses U.S. Census Bureau data to determine America's 200 largest cities and defines a collision as any auto crash resulting in a property damage claim. Hard-braking data is based on customers voluntarily enrolled in Allstate's Drivewise^® telematics program from 2015-2016. A number of cities, and their surrounding suburbs, in the full 200 Best Drivers' rankings are excluded from hard-braking analysis due to limited measurable Drivewise data, or because Drivewise was not available (California, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas). Allstate's auto policies represent nearly 10 percent of all U.S. auto policies, making this report a realistic snapshot of what's happening on America's roadways. The Allstate America's Best Drivers Report® is produced solely to boost the country's discussion about safe driving and to increase awareness of the importance of being safe and attentive behind the wheel. The report is not used to determine auto insurance rates.

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