Teen Driving

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. (more…)

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? (more…)

Speeding and Driving. There are plenty of other “action” verbs that are dangerous when combined. But when it comes to teen driving, for me, those are plenty fearsome.

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”?

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