|
By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff High school students admit they regularly text while driving,according to a new national survey that found one in three teenssaid they had texted or e-mailed while driving a car. The findings released Thursday come a day after Massachusetts madeheadlines for the conviction of a Haverhill teenager for causing afatal crash while texting -- the first such verdict in the state. Aaron Deveau, 18, was sentenced to a year in prison on Wednesdayfor the Feb. 2011 accident that killed 56-year-old Donald Bowley ofNew Hampshire. The new report from the US Centers for Disease Control andPrevention surveyed more than 15,000 high school studentsnationwide and found that 33 percent admitted that they had textedor e-mailed while driving. Roughly 44 states, including Massachusetts, have passed laws in thepast couple of years that outlaw texting while driving forbeginning teens, according to the CDC. Ruth Shults, who works in the CDC s division of unintentionalinjury prevention, said in a teleconference with reporters thatit s too soon to way whether those laws have had a measurableimpact. There is no current evidence that those laws have reducedcrashes, Shults said. The CDC survey found some encouraging news related to teens anddriving over the past two decades -- even though motor vehiclecrashes account for more than one in three US teen deaths eachyear. It found: -- From 1991 to 2011, the percentage of high school students whonever or rarely wore a seat belt declined from 26 to 8. -- From 1991 to 2011, the percentage of students who rode with adriver who had been drinking alcohol declined from 40 to 24. -- The percentage of high school students who had driven a car whenthey had been drinking alcohol decreased from 17 in 1997 to 8 in2011. We are encouraged that more of today s high school students arechoosing healthier, safer behaviors, such as wearing seat belts,and are avoiding behaviors that we know can cause them harm, suchas binge drinking or riding with impaired drivers, HowellWechsler, director of CDC s Division of Adolescent and SchoolHealth, said in a statement. However, these findings also show that despite improvements,there is a continued need for government agencies, communityorganizations, schools, parents, and other community members towork together to address the range of risk behaviors prevalentamong our youth. Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter@GlobeKayLazar. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Autel Diagnostic Tool , Car Key Shell for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Ecu Chip Tuning.
Related Articles -
Autel Diagnostic Tool, Car Key Shell,
|
