{{unreferenced, date=June 2010 The Teens in the Driver Seat (TDS) program is a peer-to-peer safety program for young drivers. More than 350 schools in Texas now have active TDS programs in place, and TDS has also become active in California, Connecticut and Georgia. At least 350,000 young people have participated in the program. Developed and designed in 2002, its mission is to decrease the number of car crashes involving teens by increasing their knowledge of teen driving risks. Teens in the Driver Seat is part of the

Texas Transportation Institute The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) in Bryan/College Station, Texas is a transportation research agency in the United States. The institute was created in 1950, primarily in response to the needs of the Texas Highway Department (now th ...

and the

Texas A&M University System The Texas A&M University System is a state university system in Texas and is one of the state's six independent university systems. The Texas A&M University System is one of the largest systems of higher education in the United States, with a bu ...

. It is funded by the

Texas Department of Transportation The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT ) is a government agency in the American state of Texas. Though the public face of the agency is generally associated with the construction and maintenance of the state's immense state highway system ...

and State Farm Insurance - Texas Zone.

Process

TDS is made by teens for teens. The direction and content of the TDS program is driven by its target audience - teens. School and community-based teams draw upon the material resources provided by the program, and then (with assistance from TDS staff) develop their own action plans that reflect a teen perspective. The various approaches and tools created and used by active teams (including posters, videos, school activities, etc.) are often shared widely through Teen Team showcase pages on the TDS website.

References

External links

Teens in the Driver Seat

Texas Transportation Institute

* ttp://tti.tamu.edu/publications/catalog/record_detail.htm?id=31376 Effectiveness of the Teens in the Driver Seat Program
Nighttime Fatal Crash Trends
Road safety organizations