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.
