By Karen Braynard
Correspondent

Last year a teenage driver, who had been licensed for less than a month, lost control of her vehicle and smashed into our van, totaling both her parents. car and my van. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt. Motor vehicle accidents can happen to anyone, but for teens new to the road, the potential for an accident is much higher than for experienced drivers.

Statistics from the New Hampshire Driver's Manual state that while drivers between the ages of 15 to 20 only make up 25 percent of the driving population, they are involved in 40 percent of all traffic accidents and almost 35 percent are involved in fatal accidents. And motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for American teenagers.

State mandated driver's education is one way to ensure new drivers have some experience before venturing on the road without supervision.

"Parental involvement is the key to success for young drivers," says officer Russ Bailey of the New Hampshire Highway Patrol.

Bailey says that inexperience is the biggest problem for teen drivers. He is quick to point out that while teens are involved in a high number of traffic accidents, they are not always at fault. Parents can help by spending a lot of time preparing their teen behind the wheel.

"Vary the routes your teen drives. Find new roads to drive on, get out on the interstate, drive at different times of the day. The more experience young drivers have the better they will be at making decisions on the road."

Unlike many other states, New Hampshire does not require a driver's permit. Teens can begin driving at the age of 15-1/2. All they need is their birth certificate in the car and a licensed driver older than 25.

If teens are younger than 18, completion of a certified driver's training course is required if they want their drivers license between the ages of 16 and 18. According to Officer Bailey, there are state standards for these courses which set the minimum requirements.

Driver's training is available at all of the public high schools, but those classes fill up fast and are often hard to get into. The state requires that the student be 16 years old by the last day of the class to enroll. This timing issue complicates when students can actually enroll in the course.

There are many certified driving schools in the local area, which is the route that many families take to get their teens licensed. Private driving schools are also used by the growing number of homeschoolers.

"Not because the schools don't accommodate us," says Jane Grady, a homeschooling mother in Derry. "The local schools are supportive in trying to accommodate homeschooled students, but even the kids enrolled in school can't get into driver's training at the appropriate time."

Grady says that in the past, correspondence courses could be used by homeschooled teens and that fulfilled the drivers training requirement, but that is no longer the case.

Homeschoolers often have very busy schedules and with this new requirement, families find they need to put a lot of other activities on the back burner while their teen goes through the course.

Gordon Ferno, the instructor at the AAA Driving School in Hooksett, says it is very important for all parents to realize that driver's training needs to take priority.

"Class time has to be made up. If parents and their teens put their sports, drama, church activities, etc., ahead of their driver's training, then it will take even longer to finish," he said. "They might have to wait for another class to catch up with the information they miss."

The courses do take up a lot of time. There are 30 hours of classroom work, 10 hours of supervised driving with an instructor, and 6 hours of observing another student driving with the instructor. In addition, while the students are in driver's training, they are also required to drive on their own time with their parents.

When they apply for their driver's license, they must show their driving log which proves they have spent no less than 20 hours driving with a licensed adult in the vehicle.

Throughout the course at the AAA Driving School, students must maintain an 80 percent overall grade on three exams. If students are having problems, Ferno can assist them by providing some remedial training and requesting more parental involvement.

Putting safe drivers on the road is the ultimate goals of all training schools. The AAA Driving School goes one step further and provides a followup driver's improvement course, free of charge for its students, one year later.

Private training is expensive, but parents tend to want their teens licensed as soon as possible. Courses can run from $400 to $800.

However, even after teens have their license, there are two restrictions in place during their first six months of driving. They are not allowed to drive between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. and may only have one nonfamily member in the vehicle.

There are a lot of pressures on teens and driving is a big one. But the more one-on-one support parents provide to their young drivers, the less likely they will be to cause an accident and their reaction time and decision making can be greatly improved with supervised time behind the wheel.