OXFORD - Clear Creek Amana High School has seen its share of tragedy. In the past five years, six students have died in car crashes. But it wasn't this statistic that drew Dan McGehee into a research study at the high school.

McGehee works with the University of Iowa's Public Policy Center which studies, among other things, teen driving habits. He was attracted to Clear Creek Amana because their rural students drive an average of 30 miles a day in their school commute.

"The school district covers 162 square miles," McGehee said.

American Family Insurance has sponsored the UI study that mounted wireless drive cams in 24 student's cars. It takes an "incident" to trigger the camera's recorder.

"Normally when you trigger it, it will flash lights after the event has occured, writing it to internal memory. So they will get feedback afterwards," McGehee said.

"One thing that's important to emphasize is these rural teens have been driving for a long time and actually have some good driving skills. But they may drive a little too fast, take corners a little too quickly, cell phone and text message a little too much," according to McGehee.

The incidents are downloaded onto a hard drive as the student passes by the school's entrance. Parents receive a report card each week, often times there's a DVD inside indicating their children have been reckless.

"Parents are essentially co-drivers and we know that during the phase when they're learning and they have a parent riding along, there are very few crashes. So if you can keep the 'parent on board,' so to speak , it decreases the safety relevant behaviors," McGehee said and called it mentoring, not monitoring.

The 12 -month study covers four seasons of driving and is about to wrap up in May. But new information on teen cell phone use and text messaging is caught on these cameras almost every day.

Clear Creek student Rachel Tomas may have set a world-record for the study when she tried to text and drive. She looked away from the road for a solid six seconds. McGehee said he attended a conference and discovered her lengthy look-away is one of few recorded.

"I used to trigger the camera seven or eight times a week, now it's once or twice." Tomas said.

The video showed that when Tomas finally looked up from text messaging and hit the shoulder, she barely missed a light pole on the right. Her sister was in the passenger seat, seemingly unphazed on an early morning ride to school.

"I like to answer right away because if I don't do it, I'll forget," Tomas said about text-messaging.

Amanda Forman is another Clear Creek Amana student in the study.

"It teaches you a lot – like you watch yourself on the videos and you say, what could I do better next time," Forman said about the report cards.

She took us on a ride during her school lunch hour and showed how to set off her camera. One hard brake at a nearby stop sign and we were mugging for the lens.

Amanda says most of her recent moments on camera have involved the cell phone. She had an on-camera moment where she was text- messaging and looked away for four seconds. When she looked up, she was headed for the median, barely able to keep her car on the road.

"Oh, oh, I'm good. I was going to freak out. I'm sorry," Forman said as she looked into the drive cam, talking to it as the car slows.

"This is the kind of event we can send home and say you were text messaging and were distracted and you lost control at 65 miles per hour," McGehee said, "You don’t have to say much more than that – they can see – parents can see the big event."

Amanda said her parents were not amused.

"My parents sat me down and they talked to me about what I could do better the next time."

Text messaging is tempting. Teens agree that it is in another category, when it comes to taking their eyes off the road. And still others admit they've fiddled with their iPods much longer than text-messaging.

"Because you are taking your attention away from what you're doing. You have to use the right letters on your cell phone, you have to find them on your cell phone, you have to think about what you say alot more dangerous than just talking on your cell phone," Amanda said.

The drive cam study looks at 100 variables and has recorded 3,000 events so far. Cell phone usage falls under a category called, 'distractions.' McGehee's next study will be funded by the Iowa and Minnesota Departments of Transportation and General Motors.
They'll watch urban teens in Minneapolis manuever the highway. American Family Insurance has plans to make drive cams available for its customers in three states; Minnesota, Wisconsin and Indiana. McGehee believes this feeback model is working.

“Of the drivers who triggered the system 40 times a week at the beginning – are now triggering the system twice a week.”

Suprisingly, no major crashes have involved cell phone usage. And McGehee expected more texting would set off cameras.

So does this mean Amanda won't text-message and drive anymore?

"No!...haha, I'll try. I'm working on it."