Do You Know Your Child's Driving Personality?

We all know our children right? I mean we really know our children? But do we know just how they will act as drivers once they are out on the road without our supervision? Will they be risk takers, will they be easily distracted, will they over cautious or even fearful of certain situations? If you could know the answers to these questions with certainty, could you better prepare you teen driver and perhaps save his or her life?

I think so. And there is a way to know. The Teensurance safety beacon GPS program has an additional feature that will allow your child to take an online personality assessment in about 45 minutes time. The test can be graded and the results will show you just what types of dangerous behaviors your child is most likely to participate in. And they will help you understand areas of training where you need to put the most emphasis before you let your child out there on the open road.

I think every parent of a teen driver should arm themselves with every advantage to help keep their child safe and alive. A personality assessment is just one more tool. Taking your child through this process will also show them just how serious you are about their safety as a driver.

If you would like more information about the personality assessment for your teen driver, please click here.

I have additional free information and help for you at my teen driver web site at www.TeenDriverInsurance.com/Clinard.

Teens, Cars and Cellphones - A Deadly Combination

We have all heard about how dangerous it is to drive while talking on your cell phone. I have even seen people trying to text while they are driving! Man...now that is scary even for the most experienced drivers to be doing.

Now, think of that same thing happening with a teen driver behind the wheel! Yikes. Take a look at this study that shows how much teens are ignoring laws and regulations that limit cell phone use while driving.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364453,00.html

Parents, we have to take extra steps to make sure that our teens are safe drivers. With the popularity of cell phones, texting, and social networking such as MySpace and Facebook, our teens are more accessible to each other and are also more distracted drivers than ever before. We need to take action now to do whatever we can to keep them safe.

Please visit my website http://www.teendriverinsurance.com/clinard for tips and advice on how you can help your teen be a safer driver. Please sign up for VIP access in order to get my monthly Ezine for parents of teen drivers and get access to my free reports on steps that you, as a parent, can take to help make your teen a safer driver. Help us make it a safe summer for our teens.

Your Teen Needs A Car - Which One Do You Buy?

Many times we are asked this question by our clients with teen drivers so I thought I would address this issue in today’s blog. Some parents fall prey to “I just want the best for my child” syndrome and in their efforts to do the “best” thing for their child, they may in fact do the “worst”.

When shopping for a first car for your child there are several considerations that should rise to the top of the pile for you. They are:

What car will help keep my child safe?.... and,
What car will keep my insurance rates low?

I can tell you that if you left it to your teen to choose the car then these two considerations would probably fall to the bottom of the list.

The odds are that your child will be involved in some type of accident in his or her first year of driving. That is why your teen’s first car should be one that is safe for them and one that won’t hurt your pocketbook in the event of a minor bump up.

Let’s start with safety. Here you want to find a vehicle that is large and slow. Don’t get one that is so old that you skip the anti-lock brakes and airbags though. Underpowered is good as well. Now I know that in these times of climbing gas prices you might be tempted to choose a smaller car for your child. I would encourage you not to fall into that trap. Think of your child’s first car as a temporary solution for say a year or two until they become more a more competent driver. With that in mind, the poor gas mileage, while painful will be a short term trade off to keep them safe while they are in their most dangerous stage. In addition, today’s higher gas prices are driving down the resale value of larger used cars so you can make up some of the gas cost on the purchase price.

One more note about safety. Do not purchase a SUV type vehicle for your child. Any vehicle that has a high center of gravity will increase the chances of a rollover accident tremendously. Young drivers simply have not had the experience that they need to judge speed going into tight turns and these vehicles are very unforgiving of this mistake.

Now, how do you keep the costs of insurance lower? Well, as soon as your child becomes a primary operator on a vehicle, their inexperienced operator rates will go up, but you can minimize the cost by purchasing an inexpensive first vehicle for your child. This way you can avoid having to purchase collision insurance on this vehicle. You need to be sure that if the vehicle is totaled and you need to replace it that you can afford to do so. When my son banged up his first car in two different accidents that were his fault, I took the car to a local body repair shop and asked them to repair it enough to keep the car safe and legal. While it might have cost thousands to repair the dings and dents, making it safe and legal in each case cost me about $300.

If you would like more information about keeping your teen driver safe, visit my web site by clicking here.