TEEN DRIVERS FACE EXTRA DISTRACTIONS MORE THINGS COMPETE FOR THEIR ATTENTION.

Byline: BRENT HOPKINS Staff Writer

Everyone has a story of some foolish thing they did in a car when they were 16.

Driving the wrong way on a one-way street. Misjudging the distance between the bumper and garage wall. Slamming into their uncle's Blazer in the driveway because they were paying more attention to the radio than their mirrors.

They seemed bad enough at the time, but in the text-messaging, cell-phone-juggling, iPod-thumbing world, teens are more distracted than ever. A report released Thursday found that nearly all of the more than 5,000 teens surveyed nationwide have witnessed behavior that takes their inexperienced eyes off the road.

``Distraction, distraction, distraction,'' said Dr. Flaura Koplin Winston, scientific director for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Center for Injury Research and Prevention, one of the study's researchers.

``The driver's listening to music, has strong emotions because they just broke up with their boyfriend, talking on the cell phone and text-messaging. Then the passengers, they're dancing, smoking pot and telling them to drive faster.''

Kids are involved in 7,500 fatal crashes annually, Winston said, which the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration cites as the leading cause of deaths for 15- to 20-year-olds. The study found that one in five respondents in the 11th grade crashed in the past year, 8 percent of whom required medical attention.

And as cars become more powerful, inexperienced drivers become more dangerous. Well-meaning parents who put nascent drivers into large sport-utility vehicles or luxurious hand-me-down sedans hand over horsepower to drivers unaccustomed to the perils of the road.

``I tell them that driving a car is like having a loaded machine gun,'' said Amer Salman, who operates Royal Driving School in Simi Valley. ``When kids get together in a powerful car, they show off.

``You know how kids are. I tell parents: Buy the junkiest car you can find so they can't show off.''

The horrors of the road have been firmly impressed into 16-year-old Chelsea Tilson. She's got an instructional driving permit, three lessons from Salman and an appointment to take the driver's test in June.

She has a green 1999 Ford Mustang waiting for her, but only if she leaves her cell phone unanswered while behind the wheel and doesn't fool around on the road.

``I don't like driving with a cell phone -- it's like having earphones on, and you can't pay attention,'' she said. ``And driving with other people, that's really a challenge.''

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Chelsea Tilson, 16, of Simi Valley drives Thursday with her instructor, Ashraf Fares of the Royal Driving School. ``Driving with other people, that's really a challenge,'' the teen said.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer

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Rules for teen drivers