The timing of the accident makes every holiday season a drudge for Telesca and his wife.

“Talk about salt to the wound. Anthony died on December 5^th. His birthday was December 15^th, so it was 10 days before his birthday. 20 days before Christmas,” Telesca recounts through watery eyes.

Even more heartbreaking, Telesca says, Anthony had done everything right. He was wearing a seatbelt, and he wasn’t the driver. He was the passenger in the car.

“Wrong place at the wrong time. The classic saying. Anthony was the passenger in a one-car accident. His friend was driving recklessly and Anthony paid for the price,” Telesca says.

Even though the pain hasn’t lightened, Telesca has turned it into something good. He started a foundation dedicated to spreading the word about safe teen driving.

As head of the Oldmar branch of the Anthony Telesca Foundation, Telesca now works with the Pinellas County sheriff’s office to help reward safe teen drivers. The foundation grants scholarships to local students and used to be a part of a program that gave movie tickets to teens who follow traffic rules.

Telesca says he’s often wished he could go back to the day before Anthony was killed and warn him to stay off the road.

But in a way, his efforts now may be doing that for hundreds of other teens.

Like Telesca, Canty-Jones has a message of her own. She says she agreed to let Tampa Bay’s 10 install hidden cameras in her daughter’s car to help make parents more aware that that age-old cliché is full of truth: accidents can happen.

Tips for Parents:

• Put off giving your teen their own car. Experts say teens who have their own vehicles tend to die more frequently than teens who don’t have their own vehicle.
• Put your teen in Grandpa’s Oldsmobile. Experts say teens drive their cars based on what they look like. If a teen has a red, sporty-looking car, for example, they are more likely to take risks.
• Come up with a contract for your teen driver. If parents set guidelines about who their teens can have in the car and where they are allowed to go, teens are more likely to stay away from dangerous situations.
• Pull the plug on the cell phone. Texting, playing video games and talking on the phone take teens’ focus off the road, and unlike adult drivers who have more experience, teens might not be able to recover.
• Limit other passengers. Experts say it’s not that teens want to show off when they take other teens along in their car. The problem is that teen drivers focus too much on the conversation and take their focus off the road.

More Teen Driving Statistics:

• Motor vehicle accidents kill more U.S. teens than drugs, alcohol and suicide combined
• More than 40% of all teen drivers will be involved in a crash within their 1st year of driving
• 45% of teenage drivers killed in motor vehicle accidents had a youth passenger in the car with them
• In 2003, more than 3 times more teens died on the roads than all the people killed in the attack on the twin towers in New York City
• 14% of all deaths due to motor vehicle accidents are teens
• 53% of teenage deaths due to motor vehicle accidents happen on weekends
• 70% of all teen crashes are considered avoidable