It's National Teen Driver Safety Week, and distracted driving is the up-and-coming threat to newbie drivers in the mobile-device age, especially smartphones.
"Distracted driving is the real issue we see for teen drivers," said Randy Termeer, president of Property & Casualty for USAA, the insurance and financial services company for military members, retirees, veterans, and their families.
Motor vehicle accidents are a leading cause of death in teenagers 15 to 18 years old, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
In 2022, the latest detailed statistics available, there were 2,514 people killed in crashes involving a driver aged 15 to 18, driving a passenger vehicle. Of those deaths, 811 were the teen driver.
NHTSA says a teen who's texting while driving is 23 times more likely to crash.
"Parents are really concerned," Termeer said in a phone interview. He has two teen drivers in his own household.
What to do about it? While electronic devices can be a deadly distraction, apps on those same mobile phones -- or accessed via factory-installed, connected technology for some cars and trucks -- can also serve to reduce distracted driving.
For instance, it's getting pretty common to encounter phone apps that turn off incoming calls while the phone senses you're driving.
And newer apps can let parents check whether the driver so much as picks up the phone while driving. They can also tell whether the phone is in a different vehicle, and tell whether the phone owner is driving, or a passenger, Termeer said.
"When you have that conversation with the young driver, whether it's just touching the phone, or scrolling through apps while they drive, you can say, 'That's visible to me.' It makes it very transparent," he said.
USAA has an app called SafePilot that's part of its "behavior-based" insurance program. Drivers can earn up to a 30% discount on their auto insurance by participating. It's optional and completely voluntary, and it's not limited to families with teen drivers.
But Termeer said more than 1 million USAA customers have signed up to participate. Other insurers and some auto manufacturers also technology along similar lines, intended for parents to capture their teens' actual driving behavior including speed, hard accelerating, hard braking, and much more.
National Teen Driver Safety Week, sponsored by NHTSA, is the third week in October.