“A second may not seem like much, but at 65 mph a car travels the length of a basketball court in a single second,” Kissinger said. “That extra second can mean the difference between managed risk and tragedy for any driver.”

The data for this report came from an analysis of video clips collected as part of a three-phase naturalistic study of 50 North Carolina families with novice teen drivers. The first study looked at how parents supervise their teens during the learner’s stage of GDL, and the second examined how teen behaviors and driving conditions shift during the transition to unsupervised driving. For the current study, 7,858 clips from the first six months of unsupervised driving were re-analyzed to investigate distraction specifically.

With traffic crashes remaining the leading cause of death for young Americans, the AAA Foundation has an established focus area on teen driver safety. For more information on this issue, and to see the full report and associated video clips, visit www.AAAFoundation.org. Additionally, AAA offers expert advice and science-based tools for teen drivers and their families, available by visiting www.TeenDriving.AAA.com.