The day finally comes and your teen drivers receive his or her driver’s license.  A little more freedom for the teen and a little more free time for mom and dad.  But how does your teen drive once you step out of the vehicle?  Studies and data have shown that seat belt use is greatly reduced, and crashes, injuries and fatalities increase.   Fifty percent of teen driver crashes cause injury to passengers or occupants from other vehicles.  It is not always the teen driver who is affected.

DriveCam, a free in-car video system is designed to help parents review driving errors and to set the safest lifetime driving habits for their teen drivers.  There is no undisclosed effort for the videos.  The videos are the property of the teen and their parents.  The videos used to review the program locally were released by teens and parents from the mid-west to serve as examples of how and way DriveCam is a useful tool. This project is FREE for 300 families with teen drivers in Southern Maryland. 

Southern Maryland has an extremely high percentage of young driver crashes.  If a parent has the ability to reduce these crashes, reduce the number of citations issued, or modify behavior before either crashes or citations occur, who would not take interest in the program?  The good news is the program still has many slots available.  And the local Community Traffic Safety Program Coordinators in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties in Southern Maryland are joining together to promote the program.  In-office review of the project are available and arrangements can be made to promote the program through at churches, organization meetings, neighbor watch meetings or just to a group of neighbors with teen drivers.  

For more information on the DriveCam program contact your CTSP Coordinator; Jackie Beckman – St.- Mary’s County at jackie.beckman@co.saint-marys.md.us or (301) 475-4200, ext. 1850; Rebecca Martin – Charles County at martinb@ccso.us  or (301) 932-3056 or Debbie Jennings at jennindk@co.cal.md.us or (410) 535-2200.