Nationwide Survey Finds Parents In Denial About Teens Driving Distracted

From texting and checking social media to changing music and talking with friends, teens admit to driving distracted at a much higher rate than their parents realize, a recent nationwide survey shows.

The study, commissioned by Bridgestone Americas, found that parents significantly underestimated the driving distractions in which their teen engages.

Teens are almost 25 percent more likely to engage in common distractions, such as socializing with passengers, and talking on cell phones than their parents assume. For instance, almost 85 percent of teens admit to driving distracted because they were socializing with passengers, yet only 59 percent of parents suspect that their teen driver has been distracted by passengers in the car.

The survey of more than 2,000 parents of teen drivers found:

Only 39 percent of parents think their teen driver talks on the phone while driving, yet half of all young drivers admit to doing so.
A quarter of parents believe their young driver texts behind the wheel, although twice that number of teens admit to texting and driving.

The study clearly showed that distracted driving behaviors are hardly limited to our youngest drivers. Nearly all parents claim that participating in distracted behaviors while driving is unacceptable, yet 94 percent of parents admit to driving distracted anyway.

Not only do parents admit their own engagement with distracted driving, they also dramatically overestimate their own driving skills. Nearly every parent surveyed believed they were an average driver and two-thirds believed they were above average drivers. More than 70 percent of parents felt that they are safer drivers compared to everyone else on the road.

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