Rich Collins and his oldest son, Shane Collins, 18, clutch their cell phones while sitting in Collins' car Thursday outside Spring Valley High School. Both say they talk on their phones while driving. Driving experts say young drivers tend to mimic the bad driving habits of their parents. Almost three of four parents have chatted on a cell phone while driving with their teen in the car. Photo by Samantha Clemens.

Rich Collins might be your typical Las Vegas Valley dad. Three kids, all healthy and well. Two are licensed teen drivers. He calls his 16-year-old son a very responsible driver. But his 18-year-old son has had three wrecks already. Typical.

Collins said he's lectured his teens about the risks and responsibilities of driving. He monitors their behavior. But now and then, the Allstate Insurance Co. area manager will take a cell phone call from behind the wheel. Or he'll start text-messaging at a stoplight. Not things he'd tell his kids to do.

"I'm a good role model as a parent, but I'm not a good role model as a driver," Collins, 44, said last week. "My (work) habits, unfortunately, spill over to my personal life. Is it right? No. But you don't think of that."

Few of us do. The Allstate Foundation, a public service group founded by the insurance company, recently released survey results of more than 1,000 parents of teen drivers nationwide, and a like number of teen drivers themselves.

The surveys found that parents generally take a hands-off approach to their teens' driving, unless it's to inadvertently pass along bad driving habits.

"It's true that parents are too busy," said John J. Phillips, owner of Drive Friendly Driving School in Las Vegas. "When they drop their kids off (at driving school), they don't even take the time to come in, meet me, see the curriculum. It's just, 'See you later, here's the money, bye-bye.'

"It's a big concern, the lack of parental involvement with their kids in teaching them to drive," Phillips said.

It's a big worry because deaths linked to teen drivers are a big problem in Nevada. According to Allstate, in 2005 there were 69 deaths in Nevada attributable to drivers ages 15 to 20. That's roughly one death for every 1,000 teen drivers in the Silver State, a rate that was the second-worst in the country, behind only Illinois that year.

Some of that is attributable to bad assumptions being made by parents. Such as:

I don't need to talk to my teen. When dealing with preteens, roughly three of four parents talk about the ills of smoking, taking drugs and peer pressure. But by the time kids are 15, only half of parents have discussed driving risks.

That, despite around 40 percent of teens expecting to speed or ride with a friend who speeds in the coming year, far higher rates than those who expect to smoke a cigarette (11 percent) or marijuana (7 percent).

"It's not a big deal for them (parents) to poo-poo the whole thing of driving," Phillips said. "That's not true with all of them. Some are very conscientious, But they're the minority."

Do what I say, not what I do. Virtually all parents polled said it's helpful to practice what they preach and drive responsibly when their kids are riding along. But almost three of four parents have chatted on a cell phone while driving their teen around, and one of every four parents has broken a traffic law with their kids watching.

Teens are taking note. More than half of teens admit going at least 10 mph over the speed limit, and more than three of five say they've sped up through a yellow light.

Also, nearly two of every five teens make or answer cell phone calls while driving. And 13 percent even read or write text messages while driving, even though 31 percent concede it's a big distraction.

"They emulate what their parents do, period. We can preach it all the time in the classroom that it's a no-no," Phillips said. "It's the blind leading the blind. The kids are going to pay more attention to what their parents' habits are than anything else."

My teen's the good one. Nine of every 10 parents trust their teens to drive safely, even though two of every three parents think teens are bad drivers in general. Meanwhile, three of five teens rate their peers as aggressive drivers.

My teen can drive whenever they want. Nine of every 10 parents let teens drive at night and almost four in five let teens drive with friends, even though teen crash rates climb significantly after dark and with more than one teen in the car.

That might be because of parental misconceptions. About half of adults believe teen crashes are because of drunken driving, when in fact only one in four involves booze.

Three of every four wrecks are because of driver error or speeding. And nearly half of teens say they feel more distracted when driving with other people in the car.

Other parents aren't my problem. Roughly half of parents said other more lenient parents make it harder to rein in their own teen's driving behavior, and two of every five parents disagree with driving rules set by other parents. But only three of every five parents talk to their adult peers about it.

Allstate urges parents to talk to kids about reckless and distracted driving just as they would about booze and sex; don't get caught up in the "not my kid syndrome" by assuming your kid is not the novice driver he or she really is; and always set a good example when driving.

Phillips' advice for parents is simple: Just get involved.

"They need to interact with the kids. They need to talk about what they're learning in driver's ed," Phillips said. "I tell my students to tell their parents everything we do.

"Driving is the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis. If this was a disease, everybody would be up in arms over the number of people we kill on the highways," he said. "But nobody gets excited about it unless it affects them personally."

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