How to keep your teen safe on the road

Jennifer Brantley's son is responsible.

The newly licensed driver goes where he says and checks in when he arrives.

Still, when Brantley heard a siren in her Nashville neighborhood the other day, there was a part of her that thought, "I hope he's OK."

"I am not sure that will ever really end," Brantley said.

Parents take a great leap of faith before giving their kids the car keys. Crashes due to reckless and distracted driving are the leading cause of death for American teens.

In Tennessee, Davidson County is the second-worst in the state for the crash rate of young drivers ages 15 to 24. In 2013, there were 7,467 crashes for this age group in the county. It is the first time since 2005 that Davidson County hasn't been the worst-ranked in the state. It is now second to Chattanooga's Hamilton County.

"It doesn't matter if they are good kids or not, bad things happen to good kids, too," said detective Andy Anderson, coordinator of curriculum development for the Essex County Community Traffic Safety Program in New Jersey and a presenter at the recent Lifesavers highway safety conference, which took place in Nashville last month.

There is a bright spot. Through enforcement and education on graduated driver's license regulations and safety laws, the number of Tennessee traffic crashes that involved seriously injured drivers ages 15 to 19 dropped by 35.2 percent from 2005 to 2013.

Still, it is hard to put parents' minds at ease.

While Davidson County's rank dropped, rankings went up in Rutherford, Robertson, Wilson, Williamson, Dickson and Cheatham counties.

Rutherford County was fourth-worst in 2013, with 4,618 young drivers involved in crashes. Of the remaining five counties, Wilson ranked highest at 24th. The Department of Safety rankings are based on the ratio of licensed drivers to number of accidents per county.

Statistics paint a scary picture, but what is "predictable is preventable," Anderson said, begging the question of why we're not doing more.

Brantley thought early on that her teen, Robert, could use some additional instruction before going out on his own. Teenagers don't always listen to their parents, she said, and he needed more help than they could offer. So she enrolled him in a Brentwood driving school, where he did class work and drove with an instructor during a couple of two-hour sessions.

He has since gotten his Intermediate Restricted License (level 2 in Tennessee's four-level graduated driver's license). He mostly drives to and from school, but he is also involved in athletics and takes piano lessons. So, Brantley said, "It's great to have another driver, but it's very scary."

Brantley and her husband have discussed but not yet invested in an app that locks a teen's phone when the car is in motion — a significant step toward reducing texting and driving. They also may look into phone locator tracking.

One of the biggest shocks, she said, was the insurance cost of covering a teen driver. With crash statistics as high as they are, the expense is significant. Right now, Brantley said, the family is paying more on car insurance than their mortgage.

Even though she feels fear in the pit of her stomach every time Robert pulls away, she trusts him.

He knows the law and he knows the family-enforced repercussions if he is caught texting or with multiple passengers in the car or anything else.

"It's a lot of responsibility, but he does not want us driving him around anymore," Brantley said. "I promise. That's incentive enough."

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 or on Twitter @jlbliss.