Teen Driving

GPS Tracking via Cell Phone, Self-Contained GPS Unit, or Bumper Sticker?

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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Tags: Bumper Stickers, Cellphone, GPS Tracking, Teen Driving, Texting

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Teen Driving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.