MCQUEEN'S TEENS; Racer turns tragedy and trauma into a focus on teen-driver safety.(NEWS)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

TEENAGERS DON'T KNOW HOW TO drive, at least not yet. Most adults don't really know, either, but adults at least have a sense of mortality and are more likely to know when slowing down might be a good idea. Teenagers have instead a sense of invincibility. And face it, driver's ed isn't what it used to be. Pour all of this into a 3,000- or 4,000-pound car, and there is a huge potential for disaster.

That potential hit hard at a high school near Palm Springs, Calif., last year, when three seniors at Marywood-Palm Valley School were killed in a single-car accident. They were not drunk, they were not racing, and it was not dark out. Police reports say that the 17-year-old driver simply got off line and overcorrected. In many ways, it was a typical teenage accident: The driver got into a situation that called for a couple of simple but very specific countermoves that she knew nothing about.

Parents are beginning to realize all of this, in much the same way as the world started to realize that seatbelts, ABS and being sober were good ideas. As a direct result of the Marywood tragedy, one parent in particular got involved.

Chad McQueen (yes, son of Steve) has two kids at the school. They're not yet old enough to drive, but he worries that they could become victims of someone who is. He also has another son, Steve, named after his famous grandfather, who is 20 and is a successful actor.

McQueen knows something about car accidents. Three years ago, he was driving a Porsche GT3 at Daytona International Speedway in practice for the Rolex 24 when another car sent him into the barrier exiting the chicane at the end of Daytona's Superstretch. The impact almost killed him. He suffered a broken lower left leg, two broken vertebrae and several broken ribs. His healing was long and slow and involved a halo device to steady his neck.

He is mostly recovered, but he does not want anyone else to have to go through the same thing. So, when he met teen-driving-safety instructor Andrew Wunderlich at a Mustang show in Long Beach, he set things in motion to sponsor a free driving clinic at ...