(June 13, 2011) BOSTON (PRNewswire) — Summer is here and that's a cause for concern when it comes to driving, according to a teen driving study.

Teens are pouring out of the classroom and into their cars and a new study by Liberty Mutual Insurance and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) gives parents reason to pause before they hand over the keys to their newly freed young driver. 

The 2011 Liberty Mutual/SADD teen driving study reveals an alarmingly high number of young drivers who have had "near misses" while driving and some insight into what may be chief contributors to those events, despite what the teens think. According to the study, 68 percent of teens admit to have narrowly avoided a crash — with more than half of those (56 percent) reporting multiple instances — yet young drivers are more apt to blame external causes such as other drivers or the weather rather than owning up to any personal responsibility in the near-miss.

In the national study of 2,294 high school students, one in three drivers (34 percent) who say they have had a "near miss" point the finger at another driver, while 21 percent say the weather was the primary cause. 

Yet when asked what they were doing in the car at the time of the incident, teens admitted to a rash of distractive or dangerous behaviors:

    Speeding: 30 percent
    Texting while driving: 21 percent
    Talking to passengers: 20 percent
    Changing songs on their MP3 player: 17 percent

Ironically, only 9 percent of teens believed excessive speed was the primary contributor, 13 percent said texting while driving was to blame, and 6 percent said their own passengers distracted them.

Further, teens who admit to have narrowly avoided a crash are far more likely than teens who have never had a near miss to report regularly ("often" or "very often") engaging in dangerous or distracted driving behaviors:

Despite all this, 92 percent of teens consider themselves to be safe and cautious drivers.

"The high prevalence of distracted and dangerous driving continues to be a concern, especially as we head into the summer months when the highest number of driving fatalities occurs," said SADD Chairman Stephen Wallace.  "We know from past Liberty Mutual/SADD research that teens are behind the wheel 44 percent more hours each week in the summer (23.6 hours) than during the rest of the year (16.4 hours), adding some urgency for parents and teens to sit down and review their family rules of the road."

According to the survey, teens don't necessarily share the concern. The Fourth of July aside, only 7 percent consider summer driving to come with a high degree of danger, yet it is the most popular time of year for teens to say they have driven under the influence of drugs or alcohol (12 percent).  Teens are far more likely to say July 4th is a dangerous time to drive (29 percent), yet 8 percent admit to driving under the influence on Independence Day.

Close calls cause the majority of teens who have had near misses (55 percent) to change their driving behaviors, albeit temporarily.  In fact, less than half of them (42 percent) say their renewed commitment to more responsible driving was short-lived (a month or less).  Improvements in driving habits most often were reported in the form of paying more attention to other drivers (44 percent); while only 26 percent of teens who have had a near miss say the incident caused them to text less and 13 percent say it led to less speeding.

It takes actually getting in a crash (reported by 22 percent of teens) to result in significant changes in driving habits.  Nearly 70 percent of teen drivers who have been in a collision say the experience changed their driving habits, with the majority of them (58 percent) saying those improvements are "forever."

"The crashes — too often with tragic results — naturally draw our attention and concern, but it's those brushes with danger that are even more prevalent that should serve as a wake-up call to any driver," said Dave Melton, a driving safety expert with Liberty Mutual and managing director of global safety.  "We don't want to wait for the crash to happen before we subscribe to safe driving practices; parents and teens can unite now on a commitment to responsibility behind the wheel."