Latest cause of adolescent angst: Teen car cams

WASHINGTON — Ken Richardson does not have to ride in his 17-year-old daughter's Ford Escort to know when she takes a turn too fast.

The camera system installed in her car will e-mail him about it.

"She's at that age where she's a little rebellious," said Richardson, 54, of Lusby, Md. "And I'm at the age where I'm not gonna take any crap."

The Richardsons are among more than 100 families in Southern Maryland enrolled in a state-sponsored study of camera systems that record the moments before and after an unusual driving maneuver, such as sudden braking or a too-sharp turn. State officials say the cameras could save teenagers' lives.

Some of the teens have other thoughts on the matter.

"I feel like I'm being babysat, like I'm being watched constantly," said Stacie Richardson, Ken's daughter. "It drives me nuts."

The cameras are among the latest tools in the struggle to reduce teen car crashes, a problem that has been increasing. Vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for 15- to 20-year-olds. In 2006, 3,490 teen drivers died, and an additional 272,000 teens were injured.

Such accidents are often caused not by alcohol or overt recklessness but by simple inexperience. The problem has persisted despite efforts by lawmakers to restrict teen driving privileges.

"Really, the single most dangerous thing we let our children do is drive a car," said Daniel McGehee, director of the human factors and vehicle safety research program at the University of Iowa. "It's frustrating for those of us who study crashes in general."

Until recently, the in-car monitoring systems were used primarily by commercial companies interesting in monitoring their drivers. In the battle against driver inexperience, they are joined by other devices that keep a detailed log of a driver's speed or use GPS technology to constantly track the driver's position, said Bill Carpenter, an executive with DriveCam, the San Diego company that makes the cameras.

The camera, mounted on the front windshield, captures footage of what is happening outside as well as in the vehicle. It saves about 20 seconds of that footage only when its sensors are triggered by excessive G-forces. Those forces tend to accompany unusual driving maneuvers such as sudden braking or swerving.

Saved footage is transmitted back to DriveCam via a cellular network. DriveCam experts review the videos, add tips for the young drivers and post them to a Web site where parents can see them. Parents receive an e-mail alert when the videos are posted.

The camera can capture anything going on in the car, but the company uploads only footage that involves unsafe driving. "If an event is captured that is embarrassing to the teen ... then we're not going to return it to the family," Carpenter said.

In the month or so since the camera was installed, Stacie has not been caught on camera doing anything too bad. But it has been a source of household division since Richardson told his daughter it would be installed, whether she liked it or not.

Richardson has tried every possible angle to convince his daughter that the camera is a good idea. He has tried telling her she could earn new driving privileges by avoiding major incidents. He has appealed to her sense of benevolence, telling her that being a part of the study could save others' lives. And he has tried telling her that when she gets older, she'll want the same kind of device for her kids.

"Whatever. I don't want to hear it," Stacie said, rolling her eyes and crossing arms.

Research on DriveCam seems to support Dad.

McGehee, the University of Iowa researcher, tracked 25 new drivers for more than a year. The six that McGehee classified as "high-frequency drivers," meaning they triggered the camera frequently early on, did so 86 percent less after using the DriveCam and feedback system. The study was funded by American Family Insurance, which offering the cameras free to young drivers it insures.

Cameras typically cost $900 for the hardware, installation and a year of service, Carpenter said. After the first year, the service costs $30 a month.

Ken Richardson, a former firefighter and paramedic, has seen the consequences of driver inexperience.

"The last thing I want is to get a call in the middle of the night or a knock on the door," he said. "This is one of those issues where I have total control. If you want to drive, you're going to have a camera in your car."