By Adam Ghassemi
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – 15 year-old Caleb Gaston was busy Monday testing for something most guys his age countdown the seconds to get while his father, Matt, waited in the lobby.
"I trust my son. It's easier to trust him than it is to trust all the other drivers out there," Matt Gaston said.
Caleb passed and after a quick picture got his learner's permit.
"It's nice having it," Caleb Gaston said after leaving the Hart Lane Driver Testing Station.
Before he ever legally gets behind the wheel, his father is making sure he's aware of news stories about other teens involved in crashes.
"We point out that this kid didn't wake-up that day thinking he was going to drive off the road," his father added.
A new study released by the CDC this month ranks metro areas by the number of teenagers who die in crashes. The worst are all in the south, including Birmingham, Jacksonville, Nashville, Memphis and Houston.
"We're hoping through actually visually seeing this the message gets through to these kids," said Purnima Unni at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. Unni heads a program that hosts mock crashes at mid-state high schools to teach teens know simple distractions are even more deadly to them.
"It has a lot do with inexperience. They're still learning how to be on the roadways and then you throw in things like speeding, and texting and being on the cell phone," Unni said.
It's a lesson Caleb says he already knows and his father hopes he won't forget.
"I think teenagers should know that they need to stay concentrated while driving and they need to be alert of what's going on. They need to keep their head on a swivel," the teenager said.
Unni says one way you can help curb the problem is taking a family pledge. She say holding parents and teenagers accountable to wear their seatbelts and not text while driving, could help get Nashville off the top of the list.
She says most teenagers are shocked to learn state law says they shouldn't use a cell phone at all while driving at all if they're under 18. That's in addition to the state-wide ban on texting while driving.
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