The Parent’s Role In Teaching A Teenager To Drive

This year, National Teen Driver Safety Week runs from October 20 – 26.  That got me thinking that now might be a good time to review the parent’s role in teaching a teen aged child how to drive safely.  This year, the theme of National Teen Driver Safety Week is:  It Takes Two – shared Expectations for Teens And Parents.

Gaining the freedom that comes with learning to drive and obtaining a drivers license is a life changing process for most teens and their parents.   The public schools in North Carolina take on some of this instruction, but most teens generally only receive about 6 hours behind the wheel in drivers’ education programs.  We know for sure that this is not enough time to learn to drive safely.  We advise our parent clients that they should spend at least 100 hours in the passenger seat with their teen behind the wheel learning from them.  If they can increase those hours to 150, then their child will have an even better chance of becoming a safe driver.   These hours of supervised driving are critical to the success of the driving training that a parent provides for his or her child.  This is a safety issue and the best way to insure that your child will be a safe driver is to practice good driving skills when your child rides with you in the car and to pass on your knowledge as the trainer in the passenger seat while your permitted child drives.   

It will also help if you have a good understanding of the statistical realities for inexperienced drivers.  As an example, a recent study found that 75% of serious teen automobile accidents were the result of driver error and that more than half of these wrecks were caused by one of three mistakes made by the teen aged driver.  These three common errors in judgment were:

1.       Driving too fast for road conditions – Teach your child about speed management, not only following the posted speed limits but also learning to make adjustments in speed for weather, traffic or road conditions that demand slower speeds.

2.       Driving while distracted – First of all, emulate non-distracted driving when you drive and your child rides with you.  Help them understand just how quickly a distraction can kill them.  Make it scary and make it personal if you have to but help them understand this concept.

3.       Failure to detect a hazard – Teach your child to constantly scan the road and the area around them for possible hazards.  They must learn to get the big picture by taking in data all around them for purposes of spotting hazards.

To help you with this important teaching process, Clinard Insurance Group has created a driver training book that breaks down what your child needs to know and how you can teach it to them into an organized, step by step approach.  If you and your child keep a log of the hours driven under training, this can help give him or her the incentive needed to learn these skills so that your teen will understand where the two of you are in the training process and will know what is required to finish this training.  Learn more about this training booklet here.

Once your child has completed the training while driving with you under a license permit, then the next step is to have your child test for and obtain a restricted driving license.  At this point your job is not finished.  Do not let up in your supervision of your child at this point.  At this point, it is important that you take the time to learn the rules of the graduated license system in your state and make sure that you consistently apply them to your newly licensed teen driver.  If your teen is anything like mine, then he will tell you that no other parents are making their children follow these rules to the letter of the law.  He will be wrong when he says this and it is your job to make sure that he moves through the graduated licensing process step by step, following all restrictions.   Graduated licensing programs have had a major impact in reducing deaths and injuries for teen drivers in states that have implemented them so please follow that process all the way to the end.

At Clinard Insurance Group, located in Winston Salem, NC, we insure thousands of families all across NC, SC, GA, and TN.  We want to help you with the process of turning your child into a safe driver and have many tools on our website for this purpose.  We can also help you reduce the cost of auto insurance for your teen driver while still helping you get the coverage that you need to feel comfortable with this change.  Please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 for help.