Nine-and-Three Is the New Ten-and-Two? Parents, a Lot Has Changed Since You Learned to Drive

BLOOMINGTON, Ill., Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The years have flown by. They knew the day would come but, in a new State Farm survey, more than half of parents say they did not feel prepared when it came time to teach their teens to drive. Parents have the greatest influence on safe teen driving behavior, but only a third of teens rate their parents as "very good" driving instructors and 60 percent of parents admit to being nervous about teaching their teen to drive.

In response to this, State Farm today launched unprecedented educational tools for all parents and teens to learn safer driving. These free tools are available to everyone – whether they are a State Farm customer or not – at http://teendriving.statefarm.com/.

"These online tools are the latest in State Farm's $20 million commitment to reducing teen driving related crashes and deaths," said Laurette Stiles, Vice President – Strategic Resources at State Farm. "It's our privilege to make them accessible to everyone, at no charge, as part of our efforts to help teens drive more safely."

These new tools are:

• Road Trips™: This first-of-its-kind, interactive, web-based tool helps parents build practice drives, log progress and increase communication with their teen. Through the Road Trips tool, parents receive tip sheets on critical driving skills in addition to three-minute tutorials on how to teach these skills. Parents also can track and log required parent-supervised driving hours, skills learned, and rate the driving performance of their teens.
• Road Aware™: According to research from McKnight and McKnight, approximately 43 percent of crashes caused by teen drivers are due to the teen's inability to anticipate and adjust to potential hazards. Road Aware provides teens with a safe platform to develop and hone their hazard perception skills as drivers, without exposing them to crashes. Road Aware encourages deep processing by asking teens to visualize where hidden risks are located, rather than simply showing them the risk. This engagement increases the likelihood that these lessons will be transferred to long-term memory and practiced on the road.

State Farm is offering an incentive for parents who are among the first to explore Road Trips – a chance to win a 2012 Ford Focus SE.  

For more information, or to check out additional resources available for parents and teens to become safer drivers and enter for a chance to win a new family car, visit http://teendriving.statefarm.com/. Join the conversation and connect with State Farm on Facebook and Twitter.

About State Farm®

State Farm insures more cars and homes than any other insurer in the U.S., is the leading insurer of watercraft and is also a leading insurer in Canada. Our 17,800 agents and more than 65,000 employees serve 81 million policies and accounts - more than 78 million auto, fire, life and health policies in the United States and Canada, and nearly 1.8 million bank accounts. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company is the parent of the State Farm family of companies. State Farm is ranked No. 37 on the Fortune 500 list of largest companies. For more information, please visit www.statefarm.com or in Canada www.statefarm.ca.

SOURCE State Farm