Sadly, I think this pastime has gone the way of the Macarena. (VH1’s #1 “One Hit Wonder” of All Time, by the way.)

I would guess that some teens these days don’t even know what thumb-twiddling is. Odd, isn’t it? I almost wish they did. Maybe it would improve teen driving, as an alternative, handy activity for their thumbs besides texting on their cell phones.

There has been a lot of publicity lately about teen driving and texting. Congress is working on a national ban, not just for teen driving but for everybody. With good reason. Read these teen driving statistics:

• Eighty percent of teens surveyed by AAA said teen driving and texting is a dangerous distraction.
• Half of the survey group said, even if there were a national ban, it wouldn’t stop their teen driving and texting.
• Teen driving is a risky activity. Studies show teen driving and texting causes more accidents than teen drinking.
• Teen driving and texting is twice as likely to cause an accident than teen driving and talking on a cell phone.

What has me most concerned is that teen driving and texting seems like an addictive habit. Receiving or sending text messages while teen driving is not necessary; they just do it without thinking. I’ve read reports of teens admitting to sending and receiving hundreds, if not thousands of texts daily. Do you want your teen driving with a cell phone in their hands?

So, back to the thumb twiddling: That is a habit too, but one much less likely to kill a teen driving. Think about it: Do you think you’ll ever read the newspaper headline:

• “Teen Driving While Thumb-Twiddling Dies from Carelessness”

Substitute “Teen Driving While Texting” and it’s a much more likely scenario.

There’s no denying thumb-twiddling is safer than teen driving and texting. First, you don’t really have to concentrate. Teen driving and texting requires the full use of one and sometimes two hands. With thumb-twiddling really all you need is your thumbs. You have the remainder of the hands free to – however awkwardly – grip the steering wheel.

Second, thumb-twiddling doesn’t require a lot of concentration. Most people can do it without thinking. That’s not the case with teen driving and texting.

Here are my top strategies to stop teen driving and texting:

Top 5 Ways to Avoid Teen Driving and Texting

1. Thumb twiddling
2. Nail biting
3. Finger snapping
4. Sign language
5. Wear mittens (Teen driving is possible with mittens. Teen driving while texting is not)

Of course, it’s all avoidance therapy; keeping a teen driving smarter by making them do something less distracting.

The teen driving game on this website might be more effective.

This brief game off the New York Times website simulates the teen driving/texting experience, without the danger. Plus, the teen driving gets a rating at the end to see how they faired. FYI: I failed horribly.

In the battle against teen driving and texting, we may be making some progress. An annual survey in Texas showed teen driving and texting is actually down slightly in that state. Almost 20,000 teen drivers living in urban areas were asked if they combine teen driving and texting. 47 percent “Yes” last year. 42 percent “Yes” this year.

Teen Driving and Texting: Baby Steps

Set an example. Be a parent.

• Do you drive and text or talk on the phone at the same time?
• Did you see the graphic British-made public service announcement about teen driving and texting on YouTube? Would you make your kids watch it?
• What ground rules have you set down about your teen driving with their phone? Is it effective?
• Would you have the courage to take your teen driver’s phone away?

Share your teen driving story, and maybe save a life.

And while you’re at it, let me know if you can text with mittens on.

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A short, but violent, video about the dangers of teen driving and texting has become a top viral video, and has kept both the media and social network sites chattering, since it was first posted on YouTube in early September.
The film, which includes a graphic, but realistic auto crash reenactment, was contracted by a British police department and was originally 30 minutes long. It was produced last year. The movie was shown to high school students as a public service announcement. And, according to its producer, it was meant to shock and elicit a reaction.

As it stands now on the Internet, the teen driving video is edited to four minutes long. But some would say it’s long enough to make a teen driver or a worried parent ill.

A girl, driving two friends, is texting and sways off the road, eventually involving three autos in the chain reaction accident. There is bloodshed, the sounds of crushing bones, and suffice it to say an unhappy ending for the teen. Within minutes, the mood of the teen driving goes from giggles to stunned silence as she is airlifted from the scene.

Peter Watkins-Hughes, the writer and director of the video, is not backing down from the controversy. Young people, he said, because of television and video games, are desensitized in many cases to the sight of blood and death. It will take a hard hit, in a place where they are vulnerable, to make teen driving and texting an important topic of daily discussion.

Watkins-Hughes seems to be getting his intended reaction. A sampling of on-line comments:

·         Some viewers are commenting that the clip is so graphic it’s laughable.  Then again, a lot of teen driving videos are violent, and teens don’t want to let on that an adult has hurt or deceived them.

• Some bloggers are convinced that the whole thing is real and the individuals really died. It looks real enough, except for the multiple camera angles, expert sound quality and slow motion segments.
• Many are complaining that the teen driving and texting habit is foolish. Some teen drivers are promising never to text while teen driving again and appealing to others to make the same pledge.

Car crashes are the number one cause of death in youth. Any accident that you see, there’s close to a two-thirds chance there was a teen driving.  Controlled road tests of teen driving and texting showed that, the average text, takes 4.7 seconds. When the teen driving is taking his eyes off the road for 4.7 seconds at 55 mph, that’s the length of a football field.

Of course, not all texting accidents are the result of teen driving. Adults do it too.

There is a massive campaign growing on the federal level, to outlaw driving and texting. It’s a matter that the individual states must decide. Several states have already passed laws to the effect. It probably won’t be long before driving-and-texting laws will be in effect across the nation.

Perhaps then the teen driving statistics will begin to change.

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I was visiting my sister in Pensacola the other day, because her 18-year-old son was on a break from college. Jesse is my godchild and my pride and joy. And Jesse – at least by my personal standards – is a teen driving novice.

She had invited the two of us to stay for a grand Italian dinner of lasagna and, let me tell you, I was looking forward to it. While Jesse spent the afternoon as any college boy would – teen driving to visit old friends – my sister and I shopped for ingredients, spent an hour or two with her card club, then returned to her home to prepare for the feast.

About 4 p.m. Jesse called to check in and – oddly – this teen driving out there on the roads for only an hour or so, asked what was for dinner. I looked at his Mom puzzled, and she quickly responded with that nimble smile: “It’s that damn ADHD.”

With all the publicity today focused on the dangers of teen driving, including teen drinking, teen drugs, teen texting; where’s all the talk about the dangers of teen driving and ADHD?

I knew my nephew’s Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was a problem in grade school, when daily homework lessons were a test of patience. But now I wondered: how is this teen driving with this condition?

Learning how to drive is an important lesson in teen safety. Teen driving in general is a challenge, what with the horrendous distractions of cell phones and text messages these days. We worry about teen drugs, teen drinking, teen speeding. We can lecture and avoid these, but what about when you have a teen driving under circumstances he cannot control? In essence, a disability, a handicap: ADHD, combined with teen driving, can be a deadly combination.

Road accidents are the top cause of death of young people, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and distractions are the cause of more than half of teen driving crashes. A teen driving without focus is a date with disaster. A teen driving with ADHD just can’t help himself.

ADHD is the result of an over stimulated brain. Suffers have described the feeling as though their minds are going all over the place, like a strobe light at some psychedelic disco. Would you want a teen driving under those conditions behind you on the highway at 70 mph?

It may be a fault, but I am not one to keep my feelings to myself. I told my sister we should get Jesse some guidance and education about teen driving distractions. I looked up ADHD and teen driving on the Internet and found some very informative articles. It seems we can improve the odds of disaster with teen driving and ADHD.

ADHD is a lifetime disorder, almost sure to show its symptoms beyond the teen driving years. Parents: Read below for some helpful tips about teen driving with ADHD.  Seek a support group. You can get help at CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) at www.chadd.org.

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Keep Your Thumbs on the Steering Wheel!

Text messaging is a nationwide teen driving menace.

Eight out of 10 of all teen driving crashes are attributed to driver distraction, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. There’s no telling how many of those teen drivers specifically named texting as their distraction, but consider this.

Last year, 900 children, ages 15 to 19, were surveyed about teen driving. Nearly 75 percent of them admitted that cell phone texting was their biggest threat to safety while driving. Even with that knowledge, almost half of the group said that they still text and drive simultaneously.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out, that adds up to big trouble. Teen drivers are aware of the dangers associated with texting-while-driving, but they are unwilling to stop.

Government Intervention

Someone wants to make teen drivers keep their hands on the wheel and off their keypads. It’s the government.

First there was President Barack Obama’s “beer summit,” just a friendly conversation between guys about race discrimination. Now his administration is proposing a “texting-while-driving summit.”

No question, in both cases everyone would agree something needs to be done, but no one is quite sure of the grand plan that will accomplish it.

Here’s what the government is thinking:

Fourteen states have passed some sort of texting while driving ban. But, considering the sobering teen driving statistics (Mile for mile, teen drivers are four times more likely to have an accident than older drivers), that’s not good enough. So the federal government wants to take matters into its own hands.

One possibility is that it will strongly encourage states to make it illegal to text or e-mail while operating a motor vehicle. The carrot at the end of the stick is federal highway funding. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggests the feds cut, by 25 percent, a state’s annual allotment of road funds if it doesn’t comply. Hello, national drunken driving ban, reinvented.

Parents recognize this little game of mind aerobics. We may have even tried something like it in our home, for teen driving. The authority figure responds to undesirable behaviors with the threat of withdrawing support. Parents also know that this tactic often works.

One could guess that, with teen driving safety, and a lot of money involved, more states will be passing bans on texting.

The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute did a study and concluded that the task of texting took a driver’s eyes off the road longer than any other driving distraction. Think about how long it takes to dial a cell phone, change a radio station, peek in the glove box, or any number of other teen driving tasks. Texting takes longer; 4.6 seconds over a 6-second interval. That’s equal to a driver traveling the length of a football field at 55 mph, without ever looking at the road.

Will Teens Be Targeted?

Some teen drivers are seeing another side to this issue. We all know that when we see a teen driving, the odds are very, VERY good that he or she is also texting. Will teen driving result in unfair police profiling?

Perhaps. But it’s not like that hasn’t happened before. At one time people thought cell phone use while driving was dangerous. Some cities passed laws to curb this nasty habit. Were those laws passed to target white-collar, three-piece suit types and soccer moms?

Here’s some maybe (not-so) surprising news: When it comes to handheld communications, teens today text more than they talk on the phone. Way more: about an 8 to 1 margin. In the U.S. as of June last year, teenagers from the age of 13-17 sent or received 1,742 text messages per month on average, and only 231 cellular calls.  On the average for all ages, it’s 357 text messages and 204 cellular calls.

Some wonder why teens, and particularly teen drivers, would prefer texting. One would think speaking to someone would be easier and faster than punching a series of tiny buttons. Whenever I see a teen driving like that, I ask him.

Recently on a teen driving blog on this issue, several individuals claimed to send or receive 250 to 500 messages a day.

“I think that this generation of kids is going to have some serious issues,” said one blog responder, “because they are walking around with their heads in their phones, instead of experiencing the world.”

How will it be enforced?

The big question is, if a law gets passed in your state banning texting and driving, (It likely will, and will be justified), how will police enforce such a ban?

Police have a hard enough time enforcing seat belt laws. Do we think they’re going to be cruising around looking for teen driving and texting scofflaws? Couldn’t their time be better spent doing something like getting drunk drivers off the streets?

Teen driving is a multi-task activity, and in fairness some teen drivers can handle it. If they are being pursued by a policeman, they might just put a quick end to the texting, turn off their phones and toss them aside.

Then again, there’s that little matter of the SIM card and the SIM card reader. Sometimes, even deleted messages and e-mails can be retrieved. Prosecutors can subpoena phone records, if proof of cell phone texting was necessary to win a case.

Teen driving is a lot more regulated than it used to be. Do we really need a law for teen drivers to realize that texting behind the wheel is stupid? Can legislation really stop stupid?

Related posts:

1. Teen Driving – The Dying Art of Thumb-Twiddling Do you rem

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I hate it when people spend a whole lot of money on a study, and the results just restate the obvious.

In the July issue of the respected magazine “Pediatrics” is the synopsis of a recent survey. Researchers tried to figure out why teens get involved in risky behaviors, like erratic teen driving.

Don’t waste your time running down to the bookstore. I’ll share the conclusion: It turns out some of them just might be depressed.

Duh! Like teenagers aren’t supposed to be susceptible to emotional/psychological disorders like everyone else in humankind?

Researchers interviewed more than 20,000 kids in grades 7 through 12, and 15 percent of them had a bleak view of their futures. They said they did not expect to see the age of 35. As a result of this black-cloud thinking, the article suggests, they got into fights, had unprotected sex, drove recklessly, abused drugs or alcohol and/or contemplated suicide.

What a narrow and naïve concept. What this article is not saying is what is significant to me.

One: All teens get involved in risky behaviors.

Two: Do the math. One-hundred percent, minus 15 percent. That leaves 85 percent of young people who don’t have depression to blame. They are simply willful and ignorant. Know-it-all teens who think they’re 10 feet tall and bulletproof.

I’ve got 18 years as an educator; twelve, by choice, teaching in the high schools. I like these kids because they keep me on my toes. I do my research, talk with colleagues and try to get in the heads of these 14- to 18-year-olds.

Anyone who thinks they’re going to pinpoint some medical phenomenon, some protein deficiency, some specific reason why kids make bad choices is chasing shadows. Brilliant men and women have walked this road before us and haven’t been able to figure it out, other than to conclude that it’s immaturity.

Their brains are still growing. Their hormones and pride override their good sense.

This has been a debate for centuries. Think of the movies: James Dean: Rebel Without a Cause. West Side Story: Sharks vs. Jets. American Graffiti: Fast cars, pretty girls and teens with too much time on their hands.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of tutoring the sweetest kid, Pierce. His mother paid for supplemental Algebra lessons in an attempt to raise his grade point average (during summer break, poor soul). He was a smart boy, a gifted athlete and a popular kid.

His divorced mother tried to make up for what he lacked in family stability by following him around with a safety net. You’ve probably already figured out that that net broke.

When Pierce hits the streets and hangs out with the wrong crowd, his attitude changes. He broke into the school’s bus lot with “friends” one night and slashed tires and spray-painted windows.

He said he was bored. He’s on probation. He’s 17.

The point is, a pessimistic attitude is typical of teens. We can’t stop them from playing Russian Roulette with their lives because they will do it anyway. They will drive too fast, mouth off, ignore their responsibilities, experiment with addictive substances and a hundred other things and pretend not to care.

Just keep telling them it’s bad. Keep an eye out without following too close. Insist on responsibility. And support them when it hurts.

There will be tragedies. There will be errors and there will be, eventually, maturity.

You and I both did it. Drank water out of the garden hose. Rode a bike without a helmet. Snuck a few smokes back in the school parking lot. Drove REALLY fast down a country road without headlights on. Ate a few high-fiber brownies. And that’s the relatively safe stuff.

Figure it out, Mom and Dad. That boy your baby girl is crazy over is more important than you right now. In a few years, he’s yesterday’s news.

It’s bull that young people are making poor choices because they think they’re doomed to die early. Maybe for a small percentage. But most teens are loud and obnoxious, willfully ignorant and think bad things happen to somebody else. Their entire social structure is based on who could drink the most without passing out and who is the teen driving sensation with the fastest car.

Don’t forget that life expectancy has increased by more than 30 years over the last century. I’d like to think it’s because cars today have more safety features. Police are more diligent about enforcing teen driving laws. Medical science has advanced by leaps and bounds. And there are a whole lot of experts and loved ones around us helping us avoid stupid mistakes.

Parents, what antics did you pull off in your teenage years that you now regret? Would you admit your scrapes with the law to your teen driver? How do your own experiences influence the way you parent your child? Care to tell a story

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I’m as concerned as the next guy about this country’s teen driving problem. Close to a half million teens each year are treated in the emergency room as the result of motor vehicle accidents. Five thousand die.

I wouldn’t want it to happen to someone I love. I wouldn’t want it to happen to a stranger.

But to think that, armed with a “teen driving contract,” you might be able to save even one young person from a wreck and pluck them from the jaws of death, is simply ridiculous.

You can find all sorts of Teen Driving Contracts on the Internet. They usually include sections with the “dos” and “don’ts” of teen driving, including seat belts, drinking alcohol, obeying the rules of the road and texting while driving (I’ll assume you know which are the ‘dos’ and which are the ‘don’ts). Consequences and rewards usually follow in the teen driving contract.

This is by no means a novel idea. Teen driving contracts are similar to those “say no to drugs” programs in the grade schools, the homework expectations that come home from the high school at the beginning of the year and those purity pledges some kids sign.

At some point, we’ve all had to sign a legal document with $10 words: “I acknowledge that I have read the (fill-in-the-blank) statement of rules and expectations and understand the therein aforementioned…” Whatever.

Rules are important because they promote uniformity and predictability. Contracts are important from a legal standpoint. Should either party breach some fine detail of the agreement, it outlines the means of recovery or compensation. Should someone get hurt or killed, it determines the degree of liability.

So, where’s the “teeth” in a teen driving contract? You can’t sue him, he has no money. You can’t beat him, it’s illegal. You can’t ground him. Well, I suppose you could, but, “Ooohhhh, Scary.”

You take away his keys. Please. I don’t need a document to tell me when that’s necessary.

If a teen driver is going to break the rules, he’s going to do it regardless of whether he has a verbal understanding with his parents or one that is written – and I don’t care if it’s legal, written by an attorney and notarized.

When you’ve got a kid barreling down the road on a Friday night with a car full of buddies, music blaring, do you think he’s going to get a sudden shock of reality and think:

“Oh my. I’ve got to slow down and pay attention here. I’ll be in violation of my driving contract and I could lose my privileges.”

No. He needs a whack upside the head. He needs the wail of a police siren behind him. Even a frightened shout or the barfing of a passenger might get him to lighten up on the gas pedal. But it’s not going to be that piece of paper.

I’ll put a GPS tracking device on my car. I’ll let my teen driver know it’s there. Going out with buddies? Have a good time. Remember the rules. I’ll check your story when you get back.

One teen driving Web site points out that we need a teen driving contract because it prevents the teen from using the lame excuses: “I thought you said…” and “I thought you meant…”

There’s always going to be ifs, ands, buts and special occasions when you’re raising a teen driver. What about Homecoming night? What if the drive-in lets out at 12:45 a.m.? The game went into overtime?

“Sure dear. I’ll trust you to do that. Here, let’s go draw up an addendum to the contract.”

Sometimes I think parents are so caught up in this group therapy mentality that they doubt their own instincts. Kids aren’t made with cookie cutters. So why try to tackle the teen driving issue with a one-size-fits-all contract?

I am not my child’s dean of students. I am not his employer, his parole officer or his loan originator.

I am the parent. I make rules, you follow. You think they’re unfair? Let’s talk. No lawyers.

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Everyday a teenager somewhere in the United States walks into a local Department of Motor Vehicles, completes a written exam, goes through a behind-the-wheel course, then gets a goofy picture taken of themselves. Even if the picture captures a zit-faced and confused looking person it is a day of joy for that individual. The teen goes through all of this so they can receive something that means everything from increased popularity to freedom. A driver’s license. This one little laminated piece of paper provides a teen driver with a sense of independence, but for the parent an additional sense of fear…and increased insurance rate policy. However, the truth is parents have valid reason to be concerned about their teen’s new driving privileges. According to the statistics, when it comes to driving teenagers are dumber than a rooster.

Everyday a teen gets their license, but that same day two teens get into a reported motor vehicle accident. Although most teenage accidents are usually minor accidents, ranging from fender benders to running into or over a curb, they still show that most teens lack some thing called “paying attention”.  Maybe it is from the years of video games, texting, or Red Bull, but it is obvious for any parent of a teen driver that the uncontrollable sense of “worry” has some validation. Everyday, in every state, in every city, you can find a car full of teens driving with the windows down, music up, phones in hand, and eyes on everything but the car in front of them. Then you will run into the occasional semi-responsible teen with just the music up. They are responsible enough to pay attention to the car in front of them but probably are not paying attention to the one behind them. Teens today take multi-tasking to dangerous levels. Never was this more apparent then when I read a story about a teen driver in Arkansas who hit a bus full of nuns. Thankfully, no one was injured, but the fact that a teenage girl, who was texting, and changing a song on her I-pod, and putting on lip-gloss, hit a big yellow bus in front of her is additional proof of the ever-growing lack of “paying attention”. Did I mention the bus was parked?

Not all teens are dumber than a rooster. Occasionally television will show national spelling competitions where 16 year old kids spell words like “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” I bet those kids are responsible drivers. …or maybe not. Juiced up on enough Red Bull and Ritalin and I am sure even the most responsible teen driver can get lost staring at a shiny billboard, setting the stage for a possible serious accident.

The bottom line is nobody wants to see their child, their teen driver, or their loved ones get involved in a potential serious accident. Everyone should live to be 100 years old so they can see their picture on the morning news and get that letter from the President that says “Your 100..congratulations!”. it is clear that there are many dynamics involved with safe teen driving. Some school programs are effective. Some are not. Sometimes parental influence is helpful. Sometimes it is viewed by the teen as over-bearing. Sometimes a “How is my teen driving” bumper sticker is effective. Sometimes you receive prank phone calls at midnight about how your car was seen driving into Mexico at dangerous speeds, and of course you hear teens laughing in the background during the call. The technology era has definitely added more hazards for teen drivers to obstacle around and it does not appear things will change. Unless you are Amish then none of this applies to you. However, if you were Amish you would probably be in a corn field or building a barn, not online viewing teen driving BLOGs.

Any parent who knows of any great programs or strategies to promote and sustain good driving habits with a teenage driver please feel welcomed to leave comments and suggestions. The goal is to have safe teen driving everywhere.

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I’ve got a teen driving at home, a novice driver, and a boy. Put any boy behind the wheel of his newly-acquired wheels, peers beside him, Mom and Dad in the rear-view mirror, and the open road ahead. It adds up to big-time temptation to see how fast she’ll fly. While you’re at home fretting, the kids are out bragging to each other about how fast they got the odometer to reach and the close scrapes they had with police.

I don’t know if there’s any evidence to bear it out, but I did a little teen driving survey with friends and most of them back me in my belief that boys are more likely to speed and deliberately drive recklessly than girls. Forgive the stereotype, but it was true in my family. I think girls are more interested in chatting on the phone, or singing along to the iPod with passengers, than showing off brawn and power.

Little nuances of X and Y chromosomes make men confident and aggressive and women the great communicators. It carries on into adulthood. Why should teen driving be any different?

 Adults have been preaching to teen drivers about driving too fast ever since there have been teens, and adults, and wheels.  In our own time, we’ve all known of a teen driving way too fast for conditions, who either killed or injured himself or someone else. Eventually you grow up. You realize you’ve got some important people to go home to at night, and speed isn’t so cool.

I don’t know what to do except to nag to my teen driver about obeying the speed limit. As soon as my back is turned, he’ll be planning his next outing with his buddies.

I wonder, are there still laws against “burning rubber”?

The California Highway Patrol offers a program called Smart Start. They are free programs on teen driving. Key parts of the program include testimonials from officers who have investigated fatal collisions that were the result of poor teen driving and talks by people whose family members were killed in accidents caused by teen drivers. The prevention program is in addition to driver’s ed and its purpose is to give teen drivers information about crashes and their causes, before they happen.

I’m reminded of a comment made by one of the police officers in that Smart Start program. He said parents should set rules and boundaries. Do some teen tracking and call other parents. Don’t worry, he said, about embarrassing your teen driver.

“They are your responsibility,” he said about teen driving. “Don’t take that responsibility lightly.”

I plan to buy my teen driver what we used to call a “beater” car. I’ll make sure it has safety features like anti-lock brakes and air bags. But if this vehicle gets totaled in an accident, it would be a loss of a only few thousand dollars – provided, of course that my son was okay.

With all the grousing and grumbling parents do over car insurance rates for teen drivers, I must admit, they’ve got the right idea in one case. Car insurance costs are outrageous for a teen driving with full collision coverage in a high-performance car. All the more reason to get them a 5- or 6-year old, four-door sedan.

Better to tell him that’s all I can afford. Start socking away some money for your own car.

Save the shiny, fast car for your mid-life crisis. By then, it won’t be bought on my dime.

Or, here’s an entirely different approach by another dad. In Sonoma, CA., a man named Don Reggio did his homework, then encouraged his son, Sean, a new teen driver, to take up drag racing as a sport. The author of this news bit suggested that the gesture was akin to giving a pyromaniac a box of matches. Dad reasoned that the hobby, supervised in a controlled environment, would take away some of the boy’s natural urge to drive aggressively on the open roads.

Genius or madness?

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Teen Driving is a Phase We All Must Survive

When I was a young and only semi-responsible gent in the late 1970s, there was one sure way to get my palms sweating and my ego deflated at the same time -  and it had nothing to do with getting rejected by a pretty girl on the disco floor (although that would work too!)

It was seeing those red flashing lights in my rear view mirror, and the impromptu meeting that inevitably followed, between nervous teen driver and a not-too-friendly community traffic enforcement officer.

Some 30 years later, my perspective about teen driving has changed dramatically, (and so has my social life). Now I fear that scenario with the police officer is happening with my teen driver behind the wheel.

All kidding aside, teen driving is – literally – serious business. I read with interest the statistics released by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA). 2007 Facts on Young Drivers are posted on their Web site. Keep in mind all these numbers are for teens and young adults, ages 15 to 20. Numbers vary a bit from year to year, but the cold, hard truth is that, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for kids in this age group.

In 2007:

• 3,174 young drivers were killed in a vehicle crash
• 252,000 were injured
• 15 percent of all drivers involved in police-reported crashes were between 15 and 20 years old.
• 31 percent of young drivers killed in vehicle crashes had been drinking

Imagine, every one of those teen driving numbers has a sad story behind it. Perhaps it’s best we don’t know them.

If you’re a concerned parent like me and would like to delve a bit more into these sad teen driving statistics, look them up at www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811001.PDF

Any honest parent worth his salt will admit that he’s done a few foolish things as a teen driver. But now that the disco platform shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, I’d like to leave the 1970s behind and focus on the here and now.

I’m not comfortable with NHTSA’s odds. So what can I, and other parents, do to change these obviously poor teen driving habits?

When we were growing up, and we stirred up a bit of trouble while behind the wheel, we tried our best to sweep it under the rug, then we crossed our fingers and hoped word didn’t get back to Mom and Dad. My parents punished my bad teen driving by taking the car keys away. Their idea of teen tracking was practically non-existent.

Thankfully, it’s 2009 and we’ve gotten a little smarter and have a few better teen driving tools at our disposal. Following are some of them.

• Graduated drivers licenses: My state recently adopted this program, which is endorsed by NHTSA. Teen driving experiences are in stages. They sort of ease into the responsibility. There are three levels of teen driving privileges: learner’s permit, intermediate or probationary, and the real thing.
• “How Am I Driving” stickers: Also “Student Driver” stickers. Affixed to the teen driver’s car window or bumper, they encourage fellow drivers on the road to either phone in to report erratic driving; or warn the other driver to give said teen driver a little more slack and space.
• Public service programs: (through police, schools and community). These number in the dozens. I’ll name two. My local high schools work with police to encourage teen driving and seat belt use. The police come to the school and reward teen drivers with some little doo-dads if they are spotted wearing their seat belts. At the end of the year there’s as drawing for a free car! The second example, I read about recently. In some town there was a program where parents sign up for a program with the local police. Parents are notified by text message, e-mail or snail mail if their teen driver is pulled over, even for small infractions. No more sweeping under the rug. The cops will send the teen driving dirt right in your direction!
• Driver safety refresher classes: Self-explanatory. The courts mandate a trip back to the classroom to learn good teen driving skills that have been lost somewhere along the road. Insurance companies could be proactive and offer discounts for course completion.

And my personal favorite:

• GPS vehicle tracking systems: Some of these teen tracking systems are quite affordable and they are so easy to use. I just got a GPS tracking unit called the Tracking Key, and mine runs on batteries. It will automatically turn on and start recording as soon as the car starts rolling; and off when the car’s been stopped for a few minutes. When my son returns from a night of teen driving out with friends, I can check his story against a full and detailed vehicle tracking report, including miles traveled, speed and the location of stops along the way.

Nosy? Overprotective? I call it appropriately cautious.

I gave my son the option of the “Student Driver” sticker, but he thought of it as a sort of Scarlet Letter. “As far as teen tracking goes, that’s totally unfair,” he said. “You might as well have a flashing neon arrow pointing to the car.”

He chose the alternative, which was the vehicle tracking device. GPS tracking gives parents the ability to monitor teen driving, without being obvious. No one but my son and I need to know the GPS tracking device is there.

We can’t change the way young people drive; only they can do that. As parents of teen drivers, we must be persistent and do what we do best: watch over them and influence them to make good decisions.

My child knows my expectations and I trust he’ll meet them.

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Count all the drivers involved in fatal automobile crashes in 2007, and 13 percent of them will have been young people, age 15-20. In that same year, teen drivers accounted for 15 ercent of all motorists involved in police-reported crashes. These are teen driving statistics that should frighten any parent into action.

There are three primary devices available on the market today that parents are using in their crusade to raise safer teen drivers. All three are meant to accomplish the same things: make their children accountable for their teen driving decisions, realize the dangers of unsafe driving and show that they can responsibly operate a powerful vehicle with precious cargo.

Bumper stickers, and GPS tracking, either by cell phone or self-contained device, each in their own way, provide evidence to parents of reckless teen driving or other broken teen driving rules. The goal is to stop the defiance or distraction before the teen driver becomes a statistic.

These solutions range from the simple, to the latest technological advancements.

• Bumper Stickers: How can a bumper sticker help your teen’s driving?

Designed from a program for commercial vehicles, “How’s My Driving” bumper stickers are a very basic watchdog. Bumper stickers are to teen driving like training wheels are to a bicycle. They’re a simple, temporary and obvious tool to help a teen driver in training.

There are many types of “New Teen Driver” bumper stickers available on the market. Some are simple notices that the operator of the vehicle is a novice teen driver. More effective are stickers that encourage other drivers to file a brief report after an experience sharing the road with the teen driver.

The parent creates a teen driving account and becomes a subscriber to the service, with an annual fee. The family receives vehicle stickers that say some version of “How is My Teen Driving?” and the parents place them on any vehicles the teen might use regularly. The sticker has a toll-free number or Web address to report incidents. When a teen driving report is made, the parent is notified either by U.S. mail, e-mail or a cell phone text message.

Some Sticker Considerations:

• Every warning helps. It informs the parent of poor teen driving when they are not present.
• Least expensive option at a cost of between $40 and $100 a year subscription fee. For about $5, parents can buy a sticker that allows them to write in their own phone number with a permanent pen.
• Parents are asking the public to keep an eye out for their inexperienced teen driver. Frequency and accuracy of reported information is uncertain. Programs have safeguards, but prank calls and anonymous tips need to be considered.
• Can report information a GPS does not: (not signaling when changing lanes, tailgating, cutting off someone in traffic, driving unbuckled, loud radio, running a red light.) However, it’s just a snapshot report: at best minutes in time.
• Other drivers might be more defensive, less likely to tailgate a teen driving with a sticker.
• “Sore thumb” theory: Driver could be ridiculed by peers, made vulnerable to predators, become target for police.
• Not all teen drivers have their own vehicles. Some share them with other family members. Do Mom and Dad want to operate a vehicle with a teen driving bumper sticker?
• They’re a distraction themselves. People might be reading the phone number, Web site or registration number when they should be watching the road.

• GPS cell phone tracking: What clues can a cell phone locator give about teen driving?

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