(AOL Autos) -- There is no easy cure for teenage traffic deaths and injuries, but Susan Kessler believes she has at least come up with a way to help limit the carnage: When a new driver gets behind the wheel, just slap a temporary warning sign on the car.



The Caution and Courtesy Driver Alliance volunteers hand out the magnets during 2008 publicity campaign.



Kessler has developed signs for teens with learner permits and first-year licenses. They are attached magnetically to the car's sheet metal and display the words "Caution Newly Licensed."



It's not hard to imagine the signs being a nightmare to teens obsessed with what their peers think. But, Kessler, a Kennesaw, Georgia, mother of six, says the real horror is out on the highway: thousands of young people are killed and injured in traffics every year.



More than 15,000 of people have ordered the signs since Kessler and a group of other moms introduced them four years ago.



Parents can mount one on the trunk when a teenager takes off in the family car and remove it when he or she returns home. Once other drivers see it, they presumably exercise extra caution and create a "protective bubble" around the new driver, or so the thinking runs. AOL Autos: Rules for safe driving



Kessler would even like to see states require the use of the signs for new drivers, as some European countries do, and she has found some support for this in the Georgia legislature.



Her goal is straightforward: limit teenagers' capacity to do damage to themselves and others. Drivers 16 to 19 years old are four times as likely as older drivers to end up in a collision, all other things being equal, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).



All U.S. states have adopted tougher licensing systems since the mid-1990s, generally requiring more supervised hours of driving and imposing more restrictions on new licensees.



But they have all stopped short of setting the minimum driving age at 18, as most European countries do.



The latest research has confirmed that putting restrictions on young drivers does pay off in lower accident, injury and fatality rates. One IIHS study over 10 years found that states with strong licensing laws had 30 percent fewer fatalities among 15 to 17 year olds than states with weak laws (those lacking restrictions on cell phone use, for example, or having only minimal restrictions on nighttime driving during the first year of driving). AOL Autos: Most common car related injuries



Armed with a decade of data, activists like Kessler now see a chance to save more lives with further reform.



"My first fear for each of my sons is, 'Please don't let anybody hit them,'" she said. "My second fear is that they might hit anyone else."



"Do you have any idea what it is like to be the parent of a 16-year-old who has killed someone?" she asked. "Parents have called me and said it's like living in a black hole."



Her campaign started four years ago when she started to worry about her son Donnie, even though his turn at driver training was still a few years down the road. The fact that nearby Atlanta ranked as one of the most congested cities in the country naturally fed her fears.



She and a group of friends began to think about ways to give young drivers an edge. They didn't want to force teenagers to wait until they were 21 to drive. But they did want to help them stay safe while they were learning. AOL Autos: Teen driving tips



The moms came up the idea for magnetic signs, only later discovering that a similar approach is a requirement for new drivers in parts of Europe, Kessler said. Once, when she proposed the idea to a Georgia state official, he asked her if there was anyone who didn't like it. She laughed and said, "Yes, my son. But we can work on him."



But she is happy the other people can readily identify new drivers and give them plenty of room. "
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