By most measures,  Nebraska's Graduated Driving Licensing (GDL) program, which governs motor vehicle use for teenage drivers, has been a success. Since the law went into effect in 1998, teen driving fatalities in the state have decreased 60 percent. And in 2016,  only 20 teen drivers were involved in fatal crashes-the lowest number in years.

But at  13.3 deaths per 100,000 teenagers, the rate of teen fatalities due to motor vehicle crashes in Nebraska is still nearly twice the national average of 7.2 per 100,000.

With research showing that implementation of GDL restrictions does lower fatalities, Jeanne Bietz, Nebraska's motor vehicle safety coordinator, believes that the key to saving more lives is to better educate the people with the greatest responsibility for monitoring and enforcing these restrictions-parents.

"When parents in Nebraska want information about teen driver licensing, they often go to the state's drivers' manual and the department of motor vehicles," says Bietz. "But these sources focus on the process for licensure, not driving rules and regulations for teens. So a lot of parents just don't know that teens face driving restrictions. We have a lot of work to do."

For the past 18 months, Bietz and a team from Nebraska has been working with the Child Safety Collaborative Innovation and Improvement Network (CS CoIIN), a program of the  Children's Safety Network (CSN) at EDC, to identify ways to better inform Nebraska parents about GDL.

Read the full article from Education Development Center