Special 'Black Box' May Save Teen Drivers

L O S  A N G E L E S, Sept. 16 -- Every time 17-year-old Ryan Evans gets in his car, he must insert a special key that identifies him as the driver and activates a black box under the front seat. The box is, basically, a computer that records every second of his driving.

He's one of eight teenage drivers who have been testing the black box for its manufacturer, Road Safety International, in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

"At first," says the teen, "I thought I didn't really need it and it would kind of be like on a burden on me. Because it just feels like my mom would be right next to me telling me what I'm doing wrong."

His mother and father like the idea of "going along for the ride," even if it is by proxy.

"I've always been concerned, as a parent, that when my son or my older son would take the car, you never had any idea what they are going to do," says his father, Mark Evans. "So the computer gave us an opportunity to know at all times if Ryan was behaving or misbehaving behind the wheel."

Alarms Point Out Driver’s Mistakes

The black box, called Safeforce, monitors five areas of concern, says Larry Selditz, CEO of Road Safety International. "It tells the parents whether the teen is wearing a seat belt, whether they're speeding, the engine RPM of the vehicle, whether they're hard cornering, hard braking."

Selditz has been selling black boxes for emergency vehicles, such as ambulances, for some time. He got the idea to market a simpler, cheaper version for teenage drivers when his own son turned 15.

"Teenagers are tremendously at risk and so that's where the idea started," says Selditz. He points out that statistics show teen drivers are more than twice as likely to die in car accidents than all other drivers.

In Thousand Oaks, where Ryan Evans lives, nine teenagers have been killed in car crashes in the last year.

The black box might have made a difference. It emits a series of increasingly loud alarms when a young driver makes an error.

During a recent drive with Ryan, the alarm went off several times: once when he turned too sharply, once when he braked hard after racing up to an intersection, and once when he drove slightly above the speed limit.