This week, October 18 through 24, is National Teen Driver Safety Week, a designation Congress established in 2007 after a series of crashes involving high school students made clear how urgently this age group needed dedicated attention. Motor vehicle crashes remain a leading cause of death for teens in the United States, and the numbers behind that statement are worth sitting with for a moment.
Why This Week Exists
In a recent year, 2,611 people were killed in crashes involving a teen driver between the ages of 15 and 18. Of those, 822 were the teen drivers themselves, and 604 were passengers riding with them. Of those passengers, 62 percent were other teenagers riding along. That same year, more than 87,000 teen drivers were injured in crashes.
These numbers describe more than just risk to the new driver behind the wheel. They describe risk to every friend riding in the car with them, and to everyone else sharing the road.
What We’ve Covered This Fall
Over the past two months, we’ve walked through why this matters and what actually helps. In August, we shared research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln showing that teens who complete formal driver’s education are meaningfully less likely to be ticketed or involved in a crash than those who only log supervised hours with a parent.(1) In September, we looked at what a real driver’s ed curriculum includes, using our partner Maxwell Driving School as an example, from structured classroom instruction to simulator based training that’s genuinely difficult to replicate at home.
This week is a good moment to bring those two threads together with a reminder about why William’s Walk built Steps to Steering: 901.
A Reminder About Steps to Steering: 901
Steps to Steering: 901 is our driver’s education scholarship program, built to make sure cost isn’t what stands between a Memphis and Shelby County area student and real, structured driver training. Through our partnership with Maxwell Driving School, the program helps cover the cost of formal instruction, the classroom hours, the simulator training, and the certified behind-the-wheel practice that the research consistently shows makes new drivers measurably safer.
National Teen Driver Safety Week is built around a simple idea: this is a conversation worth having, between parents and teens, and as a community. If you’re a parent of a teen approaching driving age, this is a good week to sit down and talk through expectations, distraction, seat belts, and speed. And if cost has been the reason your family has held off on formal driver’s education, this is exactly the moment to look into whether Steps to Steering: 901 can help.
How You Can Help This Week
If you know a Memphis and Shelby County area family with a teen who needs this support, share this program with them this week specifically. And if you’re in a position to give, every contribution to Steps to Steering: 901 goes directly toward getting a new driver through a real, complete driver’s education course instead of leaving their training to chance.
The data is clear about what works. This week is about making sure more Memphis families can actually access it.
Learn more about Steps to Steering: 901 at williams-walk.com.
(1) https://research.unl.edu/blog/unl-study-drivers-ed-significantly-improves-safety-3/