Every so often I come across an article for parents of teen drivers that makes me grimace: well intentioned, but wrong. Today, with apologies to the organization that wrote it, I will explain why the advice given in a recent post is way off the mark. I will not link to the article or identify the author organization, and I will paraphrase the content.
The article starts by saying that when teens turn 16, “it’s time” for them to learn to drive, and then goes on to list the benefits of a parent providing instruction instead of a driving school: teens learning from a parent’s personal experience; driver training on the family’s schedule instead of the driving school’s; greater trust between parents and teens; opportunities for more in-depth discussions than driving schools provide; one-on-one time; convenience; and avoiding driving school expense. The article goes on to encourage parents to tell their teens stories of their own tickets and crashes. It declares that after 50 or more hours of supervised driving, the teen will be ready to tackle the open road alone.
Please understand that my comments here are in no way advice to parents to not train their teens. I also note that I have posted in the past (October 12 and 22, 2009) about the phenomenon that there is little research showing that driving schools produce safe drivers; they produce beginners.
So why did this well-meaning article make me blanche? Because of its assumptions that (1) teens are not only ready to drive when they turn 16 but entitled to, and parents should accept this inevitability and move right into training; and (2) a teen with 50 hours of supervised training is ready to drive alone.
As readers of this blog know, my mantras are that “there is no such thing as a safe teen driver,” because no amount of training can overcome the characteristics of teenagers (including incomplete brain development) that make them unsafe drivers; every parent has an obligation to evaluate whether a teen who is turning 16 is ready to start driving — many aren’t; achieving an experience level that can be considered safe takes three to five years of experience, not 50 hours; and a parent’s first obligation is to work with a teen day-by-day throughout their first years of driving to identify and preempt the situations in which teens are most likely to crash. That is, supervision and planning first, driving skills second. The article that caught my eye is simply contrary to these approaches to teen driver safety.
So, again not meaning to criticize but to educate, don’t assume that 16 year olds are ready to drive, don’t assume that any teen driver with 50 or more hours of experience is ready to drive alone safely, and recognize that the responsibilities of every adult who supervises a teen driver begin before the teen gets behind the wheel.
Another thing to consider is that not every parent is a great driver or a great teacher. What if you are teaching your child the wrong behaviors on the road because that’s the way you do things? And even if you are a great driver, if you don’t know how to pass that knowledge along to your teen driver you still aren’t going them any favors.