Young drivers are involved in three times more serious traffic accidents than are drivers in any other age group. There are recent reminders of this in the metro as a new effort is launched to educate teen drivers.

Over the weekend, a teenage driver crashed into a tree near 105th and Pacific. She was critically injured as she and a passenger were ejected from the vehicle. Neither was wearing a seatbelt.

Last Friday, a 17-year-old high school girl was critically injured when she rolled her SUV in Lincoln. Her unborn child did not survive.

Car crashes are the number-one killer of people age 16 to 20.

In Nebraska, that age group makes up eight percent of all licensed drivers but those young people are involved in 30-percent of the state's crashes.

Some say it doesn't have to be that way.

At age 16, Haley Cumpton knows she still has a lot to learn behind the wheel.

The driving school student says, "To improve our driving, obviously with the instructor it helps, because our mom does some things that I know now are wrong."

Knowing that she doesn't know it all is steering Haley in the right direction.

Driving instructor Tony Venditte says, "They come into the class cocky, like they think they know what they have to do. When they leave the class they realize it's an important responsibility; that it's not as easy as they think it is."

Venditte says classes can give teens the basics but it takes the parents to make sure the lessons stick.

"The parents have to practice; the parents have to be involved," he says. "An involved parent is going to have a good driver and they're going to have a responsible driver."

Project Night Life is reaching out to teens and their parents.

Omaha Police Sergeant Laurie Scott says the goal is, "to educate teens, parents, educators, really anyone who is interested because everyone's affected by it and show them the risks and behaviors involved with teens and driving."

Pam Riggs knows how important the lessons can be. Her 15-year-old son was in a car crash and she says, "We described what he was wearing, what he looked like, and they sent us to the morgue, instead of the hospital."

Now Pam is speaking to other parents and their teens to help educate them.

She says, "I think teen driving as a whole is associated with a lot of risks because there's a lot of inexperience, a lot of distraction, and that inexperience alone can, in one second, can change their life."

Sergeant Scott says one other thing available that many parents don't know about is the Provisional Operators Permit. It prohibits 16 and 17-year-olds from driving unsupervised from midnight until 6 a.m.