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2020 Chevrolet Traverse Gets New Safety Feature to Force Teens to Buckle Up

The leading cause of death for teens in the U.S. is motor vehicle crashes. According to research conducted by the Center for Disease Control, 2,433 teens ages 16–19 lost their lives in 2016 as a result of such accidents. Most of them were not wearing seatbelts, and generally young people are known to have among the lowest rates of seat belt use.
Chevrolet's Buckle to Drive feature to arrive this summer 1 photo
Photo: Chevrolet
These are some of the facts Chevrolet used to justify on Tuesday the introduction of a new safety feature for the Teen Driver suite deployed on some of its cars. Called Buckle to Drive, the innovation is there to make sure teens don’t drive off without the seatbelt on.

To be deployed for starters as standard on the 2020 Chevrolet Traverse, Malibu and Colorado, Buckle to Drive works only when the Teen Driver mode is engaged.

When the engine is started and the car detects the driver is not wearing the seatbelt, it will prevent him from shifting the car out of park for a period of up to 20 seconds. When pressing the brake pedal, an audible alert will be issued and a message will be displayed on the car’s information screen reading “Buckle seat belt to shift.”

This should at least act as a tool to teach teen the reflex of putting on the seatbelt as soon as they get in the car.

“Buckle to Drive is Chevrolet’s latest feature designed to encourage young drivers to develop safe driving habits right from the start,” said in a statement Tricia Morrow, Chevrolet safety engineer.

“My hope is that Buckle to Drive will help guide more young drivers to wear their seat belts and encourage positive conversations among teens, their peers and parents.”

Chevy’s Teen Driver suite limits what a young driver can do with the car and also includes the possibility of parents having an in-vehicle report card showing how the car was used by their child.

Launched back in 2015, the system is currently deployed on several bowtie-branded cars.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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