Worrisome Study Reveals Distracted Driving Is a Major Problem for Teen Motorists

If you have teenagers who drive, you'll want to watch this.

AAA looked at videos of nearly 1,700 car accidents involving teen drivers from 2007-13 and found that 58 percent of moderate to severe crashes involved motorists who were not paying attention prior to impact.

As the above video shows, the distractions are wide-ranging: cellphones, food, makeup and music are a few of them, with drivers talking or using the phone in 12 percent of all crashes tracked.

The distracted driving figure of 58 percent is startling. It had previously been estimated that distracted driving was a factor in 14 percent of cases in which there a teen involved in the crash.

Jackie Gillan, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said the study highlights what many pundits have always thought. "The findings of the AAA report confirm what safety groups have suspected for a long time - distraction is more severe and more common in teen driver crashes than previously found in government data," Gillan said.

According to AAA, police received reports of 963,000 accidents involving drivers between the ages of 16 and 19 in 2013, causing 383,000 injuries and nearly 2,900 deaths.