In prior posts on this blog and in my presentations, the starting point for my advice to parents of teen drivers has been: “Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a safe teen driver,” and I have listed three reasons. First, the brains of teenagers have a chemical imbalance that invites risk taking and diminishes caution, and this condition does not equalize until a person reaches age 22 to 25. Second, becoming a safe driver – mastering the 1,500 or so skills that it takes to handle a vehicle in the wide variety of situations drivers face, and anticipating problems while crashes can still be avoided – takes three to five years, not the 20-50-100 hours our laws require of teens before they get their licenses. Third, we teach teens to drive on local roads, but then we turn them loose to drive in places they have never been before, so they are learning to drive and navigate at the same time – a daunting challenge even for adults. Thus, teen drivers are inherently unsafe because none of these characteristics can be overcome by training, lectures, or well-intentioned parents; safe driving takes years of time and experience for which there is no shortcut.
Being a responsible blogger, I try to read everything I can get my hands on that is relevant to my topic, and I have now read enough to conclude that there is a fourth reason, a characteristic of teen drivers that makes them dangerous and cannot be overcome in a short period of time with just instruction and encouragement: teen drivers invariably look at the front of the car and the road immediately ahead of them, but not far enough ahead to see trouble coming.
I found this best described in two books. The first is Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt (Vintage 2009). (A brilliant book, by the way.) Vanderbilt says:
Researchers have long known that inexperienced drivers have much different “visual search patterns” than more experienced drivers. They tend to look overwhelmingly near the front of the car and at the edge markings of the road. They tend not to look at the external mirrors very often, even while doing things like changing lanes. Knowing where to look – and remembering what you have seen – is a hallmark of experience and expertise.
The second book is Empowering Parent To Teach Crash-Proof Driving (Elite Driver Publishing 2010), by John Cullington of California (who has been very kind in commenting occasionally on my blog posts). Cullington makes a series of disarmingly insightful points, such as “When your eyes are up, you are able to see down but when you look down, you are unable to see up.” Therefore, because teen drivers focus on the front of the car and the road just ahead of them, they are less able to see things above them like traffic lights, and ahead of them like cars that are stopped, approaching, or coming from a side road. Cullington further explains that “Fixated attention on objects greatly enhances the chances that a driver will have a collision.” He continues: “When I present this concept I always ask the question, ‘Do your hands follow your eyes?’ About half my clients say ‘yes’ but it still surprises me that the other half aren’t sure about their answer.” Putting the problem another way, Cullington explains that student drivers watch out “for all of the objects that they don’t want to hit with their vehicle,” but little else.
So, I must add “deficient visual patterns” as the fourth reason why there is no such thing as a safe teen driver; why being old enough to obtain a license plus taking Driver’s Ed does not a safe driver make; why supervision of teen drivers is a daily responsibility, not a one-time challenge.
As if we needed a fourth reason.
Tim,
Thank you for the mention about my book. I would like to comment on some of your 4 reasons why there is no such thing as a safe teen driver.
#1. The chemical imbalances that invites risk taking and diminishes caution does exist in teenagers however, their effects vary and can be greatly diminished in most teenagers with the correct training.
#2 Mastering the 1500 or so skills it takes to handle a vehicle in 20-50-100 hours is a flawed bill-of-goods that has been sold to the public via national safety organizations, motor vehicle departments and public schools for over 70 years….the same 70 years where driving has been the number one killer of teenagers. But it’s not just teenagers. Driving has been the number cause of accidental death here in the U.S. for ADULTS. The flawed driver training methodology (and licensing requirements) utilized in this country is greatly to blame for most of the annual 40,000 to 45,000 driving related deaths (both teenager and adults) but since 99.999% of U.S drivers have been trained using this methodology, society can’t see the true problem because in doing so, the so-called experts would have to invalidate their own driver training knowledge in order to make a fundamental change. Very few people are willing to even entertain that idea.
#3 We teach teens to drive on local roads but then turn them loose to drive in places they have never been before: This is the same flawed bill-of-goods I wrote about in the previous paragraph. Teenager deaths make up approximately 14% of the traffic deaths while 86% are attributed to “adult drivers”. Society then directs these same “adult drivers” to go out and spend 20-50-100 hours teaching their teenagers the same flawed driver training methodology they learned when they were teenage drivers…..and the cycle continues.
Your conclusion for #3 was that “since none of these characteristics can be overcome by training, lectures, or well-intentioned parents, teen drivers are inherently unsafe”. With all due respect, I disagree. I overcome these challenges with my teenage, adult and senior clients on a daily basis.
You’ve added a fourth reason of “deficient visual patterns” as another reason why there is no such thing as a safe driver. I vehemently disagree with your assessment. My entire book was written to show parents how to effectively overcome deficient visual patterns while driving, to lay the groundwork for a safe teen driver. In chapter 5 of my book, I wrote about “Distractions: The Problem and the Training Solution”. This is one of the most important training solutions I’ve developed to directly handle deficient visual patterns.
It’s interesting, durng my training sessions I request that a parent ride along in the back seat to experience and understand how my driver training concepts work. For over 10 years now, every single parent that has witnessed the implementation of my concepts has commented something to the effect of “I would have done exactly the opposite of what you did today……. I’ve never heard or seen anything like what I saw today…..This will change my own driving…..I can’t believe how quickly and competently she picked up driving”.
Tim, the solution to the driving death dilemma is available and if you’re ever out here in Central California, I’d love to show you how it works.
Over the last 12 months, I’ve had many parents ride in the back seat while I taught their teenagers. There were four parents in particular that made statements which really bothered me. The first was a hospital administrator who said to me that she thought the traffic accident rate in her town would be reduced by 50% if everyone knew these driving concepts. When I asked her how it would affect her hospital, she stated, “That would be horrible, I’d have to close down my emergency room” and then immediately put her hand over her mouth and profusely apologised, she was extremely embarrassed. The second was a man who was the manager of an ambulance company who stated to me that the high traffic accident rate is “job security”. The third and fourth were both paramedics who made similar statements about job security.
Another aspect of society making drastic changes is the large number of industries that are partially or fully financially dependent upon traffic accidents. There are 6.5 million traffic accidents yearly(17,800 daily) and from those there are 3.5 million injuries a year (9600 daily). Millions of vehicles are totaled each year which the auto industry needs to replace. More ambulance, ER doctors & nurses, police and fire personel are needed to handle the amount of carnage on the road. Personal injury lawyers, rehab specialists, tow truck driver, junk yards, auto body shops, plastic surgeons….the list goes on and on and all of this could be greatly reduced if the driver education and training industry was a competent industry along with changing the government rules and regulations governing the issuance of drivers licenses.
The driver education and training industry isn’t a competent industry and our kids are dying because of it.
Thank you for letting me express my viewpoint.
John Cullington