Keeping Teens Safe Behind the Wheel

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy flickr

When it comes to giving adults a fright, three of the top-10 have to be:

      1.      the impending arrival of your first child

      2.      the day your child leaves for college

      3.      dealing with a teenager who is old enough to drive. 

Other than the angst of having to worry about teaching your teen how to drive, then lending them the family sedan to go to the mall, today’s parents have a lot more to worry about then mine did back in the 80’s.  That’s because there are so many more things to distract teenagers behind the wheel nowadays.  When one realizes that more than 650 teenagers are injured and an average of 6 are killed in vehicle-related crashes every day in the US, I thought it was time I provided all you parents out there with a short list of hazards faced by teenage drivers.

1.      Dangers on the dashboard – It’s hard enough keeping a teenager focused on the road while they drive without putting an electronic billboard in the middle of the dashboard.  If you haven’t noticed, today’s cars are extremely distracting.  While the touchscreen-enabled dashboard was invented to make it easier to do everything from operate vehicle accessories to navigate, they have actually accomplished the opposite.  That’s because to use the touchscreen, you need to take your eyes off the road.  Fortunately, most late model vehicles come with a switch that allows you to turn the screen off, which is one way to help your teenage driver focused on the road instead of the radio.

Image courtesy flickr

2.      Talking the talk – Since telephones were invented, teenagers have spent an inordinate amount of time conversing with their friends on them.  While this presents a nuisance to their parents from time to time, when teenagers talk (or text) while driving, it can be downright deadly.  While many newer cars include hand’s-free phone interfaces that allow the driver to talk without taking their hands off the wheel, when it comes to teenage drivers, this is still asking for trouble.  If you have a teenager that drives, take the time to sit down with them and explain the hazards of talking or texting while driving. Your best bet for keeping your teenage driver safe is to prohibit them from keeping their phone on while behind the wheel.  

3.      Failure is not an option – Another thing you need to emphasize to teenagers is the absolute necessity of always wearing their seat-belts.  While all modern vehicles are required to be equipped with air bags, these are not meant to work without seat-belts.  In fact, if seat-belts aren’t worn and the airbags deploy, this can cause injury or even death.  Also, in a roll-over, seat-belts are the only thing that keeps drivers and passengers from being ejected from a vehicle.

4.      Too much of a good thing – Most adults don’t realize that the biggest cause of accidents isn’t alcohol, it’s talking to passengers in a moving vehicle.  If you have kids, you know you sometimes when you drive you turn your head to either reply to or scold a child.  When you do this, you have just created a blind spot that could easily cause you to hit another vehicle or a pedestrian that blunders in front of your car.  If you have problems dealing with distractions inside your vehicle, do you know what happens when you get a car full of teenagers rolling down the highway together?  A potential disaster.  While I’m not saying that you need to keep your teenage driver from having another passenger in the car with them until they are in their twenties, I am saying that you need to clue in teenage drivers on the dangers of distracted driving.  Insurance industry statistics have proven that the fatal crash risk for teenage drivers increases with every extra teenage passenger in the vehicle.

5.      Too close for comfort – While this little ditty is aimed at teenage drivers, it applies to most drivers.  I’m talking about the fact that most drivers follow other vehicles too closely.  If the driver ahead were to jump on the brakes, do you have enough time to react and stop?  Especially when driving down the highway at 70 MPH, a car covers the length of a football field every 3 seconds.  If you want to be safe behind the wheel, every driver needs to adhere to the 3-second rule when following another vehicle.

Image courtesy freestockphotos.biz

6.      Multi-tasking multiplies the risk – Nearly 90% of teenagers who consider themselves “safe drivers” admit to multitasking while behind the wheel.  A third of these same drivers admit to taking their eyes off the road when an app notification arrives.  This is also why 6 out of 10 crashes involving teenage drivers are the result of distracted driving.

7.      Don’t be a fool, establish some rules – While many parents today coddle their kids, this can be the worst way to protect teenage drivers.  Remember, a motor vehicle is a deadly weapon that can injure, maim and kill drivers, passengers, pedestrians and other motorists in the blink of an eye.  The reason it costs so much to insure a teenage driver nowadays is because the risk of a 16-19-year-old being involved in a motor vehicle accident is three times greater than drivers aged twenty and older.  The best way for parents to protect their teens who drive is to lay down the law by establishing hard and fast rules that protect teens from themselves.  Not only will this help parents sleep better at night, but it could also save you money since a safe driver is much less likely to injure themselves or do harm to the family sedan.

Catherine Powell is the owner of A Plus All Florida, Insurance in Orange Park, Florida.  To find out more about saving money on your auto insurance, check out her website at http://autoinsuranceorangeparkfl.com/