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Teen driving

Five Worst Teen Driving Mistakes: Part Four

January 12, 2009

Most parents live in dread of the day their teens get a driver’s license and get behind the wheel alone. Their concerns are well-founded, since teen drivers have the highest death rates in car crashes of any age group. Motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of death among Americans aged 15-20. But parents can help their teens be a safer driver even after they are licensed, particularly by paying attention to common risk factors.

In this five-part series, we’ll discuss the five worst teen driving mistakes:

In this, part four of the series, we’ll discuss a frequent cause of collisions for teen drivers – driving too fast for conditions. In addition to succumbing to the lure of speeding on a straight, dry road, teens often fail to lower their speeds on hazardous roads or in dangerous weather conditions. They may compensate for heavy traffic by weaving in and out of traffic and braking more frequently instead of simply reducing speed.

Higher speeds reduce maneuverability, increase stopping distances, and decrease reaction time. Problems caused by increased speed are often magnified in adverse conditions, such as poor visibility or on wet or snowy roads. Teach your teen to be prepared to adjust speed for varying conditions and situations. Different traffic, roadway, and weather conditions can change the amount of time and space needed for slowing down while maintaining control of the vehicle.

Be sure to let your teen practice driving with you in the passenger seat in a variety of road and weather conditions, even after your teen has a driver’s license. Ask your teen to identify the roadway surfaces and conditions at the beginning of each lesson. If the weather changes while you are driving, be sure your teen responds appropriately. For example, if it is sunny when you start out but begins raining during your drive, make sure your teen reduces speed to accommodate the slippery road surface.

Make sure your teen maintains an appropriate following distance at all times. Check your driver handbook for the recommended following distance in your state. Teach your teen to add seconds to the minimum following distance for poor road conditions, bad weather, poor visibility such as in darkness or fog, or in any area where additional hazards are present.

Review the following points about speed with your teen:

  • Speeding reduces a driver’s ability to steer safely around curves on the highway or avoid objects in the roadway.
  • Speeding extends the distance necessary to stop the vehicle, increases the distance a vehicle travels while a driver reacts, and reduces the effectiveness of the vehicle’s safety features.
  • The faster the vehicle is traveling, the greater the impact if the vehicle does crash. Inversely, the effectiveness of restraint devices like airbags and safety belts and vehicular construction features such as crumple zones and side member beams decline as impact speed increases.
  • The probability of a disfiguring or debilitating injury or death increases with higher speed on impact.
  • The economic cost to society of speeding-related crashes is estimated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to be 40.4 billion dollars per year.

Make sure your home driver education program is complete; use a Driving Log to keep track of your teen’s progress.

Five Worst Teen Driving Mistakes: Part One
Five Worst Teen Driving Mistakes: Part Two
Five Worst Teen Driving Mistakes: Part Three

Five Worst Teen Driving Mistakes: Part Three

January 7, 2009

Most parents live in dread of the day their teens get a driver’s license and get behind the wheel alone. Their concerns are well-founded, since teen drivers have the highest death rates in car crashes of any age group. Motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of death among Americans aged 15-20. But parents can help their teens be a safer driver even after they are licensed, particularly by paying attention to common risk factors. In this five-part series, we’ll discuss the five worst teen driving mistakes:

In this, part three of the series, we’ll discuss the difficulty teens have in responding properly to emergency situations. Teens often panic in emergency situations because they have neither the training nor the experience to execute the correct maneuver quickly enough to avoid a crash. They may take no action at all, take too long to react, or overcorrect – which could even make the situation worse.

In a driving emergency, a driver can stop or accelerate, with or without an accompanying turn. Most drivers who act out of panic will simply stop. They may skid to a stop, stop without considering the type of brakes on the vehicle (standard or anti-lock), or slam on the brakes when a more controlled stop is possible. If they try to turn, it is likely to be an uncontrolled turn and is often an overcorrection given the situation. For example, when the right wheels are off the pavement, a panicked driver will quickly yank the steering wheel to the left without slowing down, which could cause a rollover in some vehicles.

Be sure to review the following information with your teen as part of your home driver training program.

Most new vehicles have ABS (Anti-lock Braking System), which allows drivers to stop without skidding. In general, if you need to stop quickly with ABS, press on the brake pedal as hard as you can and keep pressing on it. You might feel the brake pedal pushing back when the ABS is working. Do not let up on the brake pedal. The ABS system will only work with the brake pedal pushed down.

Without ABS, you can cause the vehicle to go into a skid if you brake too hard. Apply the brakes as hard as you can without locking them. If the brakes lock up, you will feel the vehicle start to skid. Quickly let up on the brake pedal. As soon as the vehicle stops skidding, push down on the brake pedal again. Keep doing this until the vehicle has stopped.

In most cases, you can turn the vehicle quicker than you can stop it. You should consider turning in order to avoid a collision. Make sure you have a good grip with both hands on the steering wheel. Once you have turned away or changed lanes, you must be ready to keep the vehicle under control. Some drivers steer away from one collision only to end up in another. Always steer in the direction you want the vehicle to go.

One aspect of having ABS is that you can turn your vehicle while braking without skidding. This is very helpful if you must turn or stop or slow down.

If you do not have ABS, you must use a different procedure to turn quickly. Step on the brake pedal, but then let up and turn the steering wheel. Braking will slow the vehicle some, and it puts more weight on the front tires and this allows for a quicker turn. Do not lock up the front wheels while braking or turn so sharply that the vehicle can only plow ahead.

Another consideration is that generally it is better to run off the road than to crash head-on into another vehicle.

Sometimes it is best or necessary to speed up to avoid a collision. This may happen when another vehicle is about to hit you from the side or from behind and there is room to the front of you to get out of danger. Be sure to slow down once the danger has passed.

Will your teen understand, retain and use the information in the driver handbook, or just memorize enough to pass the test? You can support your teen’s learning and retention of the driver handbook with a new driver prep course. Have your teen start with a Free DMV Practice Test today.

Five Worst Teen Driving Mistakes: Part One
Five Worst Teen Driving Mistakes: Part Two

Wear a seat belt

Five Worst Teen Driving Mistakes: Part One

December 11, 2008

Most parents live in dread of the day their teens get driver’s licenses and get behind the wheel on their own. Their concerns are well-founded, since teen drivers have the highest death rates in car crashes of any age group. Motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of death among Americans aged 15-20. But parents can help their teens be a safer driver even after they are licensed, particularly by paying attention to common risk factors. In this five-part series, we’ll discuss the five worst teen driving mistakes:

In this, part one of the series, we’ll emphasize the importance of wearing safety belts. First, you’ll need to set the right example for your children by wearing your safety belt. “Do as I stay, not as I do,” doesn’t work with teens, particularly when they’re out of your sight and you can’t personally enforce the rule.

Also, make sure you never pull out of your driveway or a parking space until everyone in the vehicle is wearing a seat belt. Many high school students fail to use their safety belts even when riding with adults who are buckled up. An observational survey conducted at 12 high schools found that 46 percent of high school students were not wearing their safety belts when riding with adult drivers. About half of the unbelted students were riding with adults who were belted. If your teens are used to wearing safety belts as passengers, they’ll be comfortable wearing them as drivers.

Next, educate your teen about the benefits of wearing safety belts. Here’s some supportive information:

  • Research has found that lap/shoulder safety belts, when used, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent. For light truck occupants, safety belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 60 percent and moderate-to-critical injury by 65 percent.
  • Ejection from the vehicle is one of the most injurious events that can happen to a person in a crash. In fatal crashes in 2005, 75% of passenger car occupants who were totally ejected from the vehicle were killed. Safety belts are effective in preventing total ejections. Only 1% of the occupants reported to have been using restraints were totally ejected, compared with 30% of the unrestrained occupants.
  • Safety belts should always be worn, even when riding in vehicles equipped with air bags. Air bags are designed to work with safety belts, not alone. Air bags, when not used with safety belts, have a fatality-reducing effectiveness rate of only 12 percent.

Third, educate your teen about the safety belt laws in your state. Be sure to review the graduated licensing laws – safety belt enforcement may differ from that of fully licensed drivers.

Statistical source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Practice Permit Test

Why You Should Take a Practice Permit Test Course

December 4, 2008

When teens are asked why they want their driver’s licenses, they often answer, “for freedom and independence.” But even getting a permit can be difficult, and if you don’t comply with certain restrictions on your permit and license, the freedom and independence you wanted so much and worked so hard for can quickly disappear. That’s why skimming the handbook and memorizing a few facts that are quickly forgotten as soon as you pass your written test is not a good use of your time. You should take a practice permit test course, and you can do so online, from the comfort of your home.

It is difficult to learn enough from the handbook to pass the written test at the driver’s license office. Simply reading the handbook is not enough. It is almost impossible for anyone, even your parents, to anticipate every type of question that might be asked on the test. The questions on the written test are typically pulled from a database of over 500 questions. Every test is random, so talking to your friends about what their tests were like won’t help you. And questions on the test are written with the assumption that you understand the entire handbook, so knowing just a few parts of the handbook well won’t be sufficient for you to achieve the minimum passing score on the test, which is usually 80%.

A practice permit test course helps you pass the written test because it replicates the experience of taking the test at the driver’s license office. Often, people are surprised when they take an online written test because they realize how little they remember even after reading the handbook. You don’t want that surprise when you’re already at the driver’s license office! Many states charge you a fee and make you wait several days to retake the test if you fail. That means you have to get your parent or guardian to make the trip all over again. With an online practice course, you can take tests as many times as it takes to feel totally comfortable with the material. Some courses even offer a guarantee that you will pass your test at the driver’s license office after passing the practice tests a certain number of times.

But an online DMV practice permit test course does more than help you pass the written test to get your learner’s permit. It helps you remember information that will help you keep your driver’s license and make you a safer driver. For example, many states now have graduated licensing programs that specify a variety of laws for new drivers, including curfew hours. If you don’t know those laws, you won’t follow them – and not following them could mean losing your permit or license. And of course, if you don’t know and follow the rules of the road, you could get tickets or worse, have a crash that results in property damage, injury or death. Even worse than losing your license would be causing harm to someone else, perhaps one of your friends, or losing your own life.

Hopefully, you’ll have your driver’s license for many years. Why not invest in it so you’ll have a smooth start?

Taking Do as I Say, Not as I Do to the Limit with Teens

November 26, 2007

Perhaps one of the most important axioms today when it comes to shaping young minds is “lead by example.” However, you better watch what you do behind the wheel of your car! Your teenagers may seem that they are indifferent to the world around them, buried in their MP3 player or Gameboy, but they are truly watching your every move behind the wheel, at least part of the time.

The concept of “leading by example” is definitely an altruistic one that parents say they often do, but surveys of teens across the country say that the parent contingent is rather lax in that area. There are teen reports of parents shouting at drivers, talking on the cell phone while driving, not wearing seat belts and much more.

The key to bringing down that high figure of teenage driving fatalities is for parents to start doing what they say they do (but don’t) and actually practice safe driving practices. For many, that is likely easier said than done. It is hard retraining your self to not slip into bad habits, to not reach for that cell phone or hot cup of coffee while driving. However, if you start driving more safely, the only habits your teens are going to form are good ones.

To give you an idea of what teens say about their parent’s driving habits, about 40% have said that they have actually been scared of something their parents did behind the wheel. Multi-tasking is another big problem that parents perpetuate. Is it really important to change the radio, dial a number on the cell phone and drive with your knees? What did drivers do 25 years ago when cell phones weren’t really around?

Part of why teen driving accidents and fatalities occur is that they have not had any formal instruction prior to obtaining their learner’s permit. What they learned was through observation of their parents. Now that is a scary thought! It is almost criminal that about 30% of teens have had not face time with their parents or practical hands-on knowledge of driving behind the wheel. It is pure parental negligence not to provide some sort of informal training, whether you do it yourself or a family friend.

Teens do need to take some responsibility for their actions however. There are countless safe driving campaigns out there so teens at some point are faced with what is safe and what is not in terms of driving practices. Knowing the difference between right and wrong and then doing something wrong anyway is not the best way to earn the privilege of driving. Parents and teens need to establish open dialog and truly work together to create safe driving habits that both can follow.