CLEAR LAKE, Iowa - It's a shocking number: a little more than 2,400 teens ages 16-19 across the U.S. were killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

With the week of October 21-27 desginated as Teen Driver Safety Week, the U.S. Department of Transportation is asking parents to have conversations with their teens about staying safe behind the wheel.

Nathan Kamberger is 15 and working on getting his permanent driver's license, and learned quite a bit in under an hour.

"We were doing some 3 point turns, we were parallel parking, we were doing perpendicular parking."

He's also learning about avoiding distractions, as all attention should be on the road at all times.

"Really important. A wreck means your life."

Mike Ghere is with Drive Pro, and has been teaching and training thousands of drivers young and old for nearly 30 years. He has his students close their eyes for 5 seconds in a parking lot to represent how far of a distance you can travel when your eyes are off the road.

"When you do that, you see how absolutely how long that period is and how far you really move. And if you're going down the highway, 60-70 mph, you're going a lot of feet without seeing anything."

In addition, during the winter months, he has drivers practice stopping on dry, sanded and iced surfaces in parking lots.

"Every texture is different with stopping distance. It's always better to stop too soon, in other words have more run way, than not enough."

Over time, it's easy to forget some of the things being taught in driver's ed. Kamberger says a refresher course is never a bad thing.

"I think it would be pretty important so you don't forget what's going on and what you're supposed to do."