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New Study: Teens with their own cars crash more
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The new wisdom: Only hand over the keys with limitations and a watchful eye.
Parents of teens need ammunition.
Our adolescent children no longer view us as the voices of all-knowing authority. So it's helpful if we can get a celebrity, like the latest teen heart throb, to validate the message we are trying to relay. Then there is hope that that message may be positively received by our kids. Short of celebrity endorsement, however, we have to rely on the experts. Why do you think I depend so heavily on research in my posts? My use of studies is to equip myself with ammunition with which to face my teens.
So here it is—the new ammunition for why you need to hold onto the car keys and require your teen driver to sign a New Driver Contract…
A new study has just been published concluding that teens with their own cars or free use of a car, have more accidents. This is no small matter since the accident and fatality statistics for teen drivers are grim…and apparently, getting grimmer! As Lindsey Tanner, Medical Writer for the Associated Press points out, in 2007, 7000 people nationwide were killed in accidents involving teen drivers. Nearly half of those deaths were the teen drivers themselves. More than 250,000 teen drivers were injured.
The new research showed another important fact—the more parents were involved and hands-on with their new drivers, the less likely their kids crashed. We parents of teens are so close to freedom. We are trying to wean our teens from our involvement—we are at the point where our teens want to be free and we want their freedom, too. But the teen driving numbers are clear—at least where cars are involved, teens still need diligent supervision. The study showed that kids who had clear guidelines and a graduated approach to car use, were 71% less likely to drink while driving and 30% less likely to drive whil using a cell phone than teen drivers with uninvolved parents.
So parents really can save the lives of their children, their children’s friends and the general driving public by taking specific steps to prepare and continue to monitor their teen drivers. I would never suggest that you deny your child his or her own car. However, one of the study’s authors, Dr. Flaura Koplin, theorized that when a teen has free access to a car, they may feel a sense of entitlement that makes him less cautious. So if your teen does have her own car, you may want to limit her comings and goings; supervise how much she is driving and with whom; and have a formal way of transitioning her to full independence behind the wheel.
Also see, Should Teens Have Own Car? Study Suggests 'No'!
Click HERE for more parenting and teen driving resources
Click HERE to see a sample New Driver Contract
Click HERE for 7 Ways to Accident-Proof Your Teen
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