WARNING! My 16-year-old son now has his driver’s license. The junior kind, of course, where he’s able to drive himself to and from work until 9 p.m., and with only one friend in the car, or something like that.

I won’t bore you with the details of my white knuckle, epithet-laden rides with him, the outrageous insurance costs, or the frame-bender mishap he had the first week he had his license. No, just consider this a word to the wise.

He means well, and I think he recognizes the gravity of getting behind the wheel, but his lack of experience combined with his unfounded over confidence gives me cause to pause. I keep reminding myself I’m not the first or the last to have a teenager keeping him up at night, but my concerns about him behind the wheel are not unwarranted.

The National Safety Council says teen drivers face high risks when they get behind the wheel, and it should be commended for its efforts to reduce those risks. If you have a teenage driver, check out NSC’s “Teen Driver: A Family Guide to Teen Driver Safety,” which is an invaluable resource for helping teens understand the risks of driving unsafely.

Teens, however, aren’t the only ones who face risks on the road. Between 1992 and 2001, 13,337 civilian workers died in roadway crashes, an average of four deaths per day, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says, roadway crashes led all other causes of workplace fatalities, making up 22 percent of workplace deaths, compared with 13 percent from homicide and 10 percent from falls.

For employers and victims, a workplace crash can have far-reaching financial, medical, and legal consequences. Not inevitable, roadway crashes are also the leading cause of death for workers in clerical and professional specialty jobs, and the second leading cause for executives, sales workers, and technicians, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Teens are not the only drivers with age-related issues. NIOSH says that the safety concerns of older drivers demand more attention from employers and workers. Roadway crashes are the leading cause of occupational fatalities for older workers in the U.S. Between 1992 and 2002, nearly 3,200 workers aged 55 years and older died in motor vehicle crashes on public highways, accounting for 22 percent of all occupational fatalities among this worker group.

NIOSH has found that in the general population, fatal crash involvement rates decrease with age. However, death rates for work-related roadway crashes increase steadily beginning around age 55, and begin to approach rates for the general population.

Unlike other workplaces, the roadway is not a closed environment. Preventing work-related roadway crashes requires strategies that combine traffic safety principles and sound safety management practices. Although employers cannot control roadway conditions, they can promote safe driving behavior by providing safety information to workers and by setting and enforcing driver safety policies.

For more help with establishing prevention strategies for your workplace drivers, go to www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2004-136/default.html. And, heaven forbid, if you have a teenage driver at home or in the workplace, you have my condolences. For help with that, go to www.nsc.org/transportation/teen_driver/teen_driving_guide.aspx.

Thanks and good luck. You may need it.