Wisconsin based American Family Insurance will start rolling out a video campaign to save teenage lives.
The Teen Safe Driver Program involves putting a video camera in the car of a teen age driver to record risky driving behavior. Sudden acceleration, sudden braking or taking a turn too fast.
The camera can catch ten seconds before and ten seconds after such moves and reveals what was going on inside the car at the time. The video is transmitted to the digital vendor who then sends it to the parent's computer.
Rick Fetherston, Vice President of Public Affairs at American Family, says that's when the parents sit down with their teen driver and review what happened and how it can be prevented from happening again.
It's a voluntary program that Fetherston says worked well in the pilot tests. Incidents of risky driving behavior were cut by 70 per cent. Seat belt compliance jumped 100 per cent.
Fetherston says car accidents are the single leading cause of death among children 15 to 19 years old. Since current educational safety programs don't seem to be working, Fetherston says it's time to give the video driving lesson a try.