Our Mission
A major focus of NCAST is promoting awareness of safety issues specific to younger motorists.
Teen drivers are especially at risk on the roads, with vehicle crashes the leading cause of death in America among those under 21.
The inexperience and impulsiveness of teen drivers is a significant reason for their high crash rates, making important the safety features of the vehicles they drive as well as getting plenty of supervised driving practice.
SPOTLIGHT:
Buckle up. Every trip. Every time.
Including Thanksgiving.
One of the safest choices drivers and passengers can make is to buckle up. Many Americans understand the lifesaving value of the seat belt – the national use rate was at 91.9% in 2023. Seat belt use in passenger vehicles saved an estimated 14,955 lives in 2017. Understand the potentially fatal consequences of not wearing a seat belt and learn what you can do to make sure you and your family are properly buckled up every time. The benefits of buckling up are clear:
- During the 2022 Thanksgiving holiday weekend, there were 326 passenger vehicle occupants killed in traffic crashes across the nation, and 43% (141) were unrestrained.
- Not wearing a seat belt proved to be deadly at any time of the day during the holiday weekend: 47% of those killed in nighttime crashes were unbuckled, and 38% of those killed in daytime crashes also were unbuckled.