If you are the parent of a teenage driver and want
- A better understanding of the dangers and risks
- The knowledge to make better decisions about when to entrust your teen with car keys
- The courage to say "no" to your teen when necessary
This blog is for you
Recognized by the U.S. Department of Transportation/National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration Public Service Award, April 2010, for "extraordinary efforts to assist parents in making informed decisions about safe teen driving"
(This recognition does not imply DOT/NHTSA endorsement of the contents of this blog.)
Designated Traffic Safety Hero of the Year by the AAA Club of Southern New England, December 2012
For First-Time Visitors
For those visiting for the first time: Welcome! I hope you
find the blog informative and user-friendly.
I have been posting articles since September 2009, and I started with what might be considered the most
basic and important topics. So, if you want to start your reading with those initial posts, just click through the
Archives for September - October 2009, and work forward from there.
Proceeds from advertising on this blog are paid to my son's memorial fund, which supports day care tuition for infants and toddlers in the City of Hartford.
Coming in September 2013:
NOT SO FAST:
Parenting Your Teen Through the Dangers of Driving
I am pleased to announce that my book for parents of teen drivers will be published this September by the Chicago Review Press! The
book is now available for pre-publication orders. For more information, click here.
On December 2, 2006, my seventeen-year-old son, Reid, the driver, died in a one-car accident. On a three-lane Interstate highway
that he probably never had driven before, on a dark night just after rain had stopped, and apparently traveling above the speed limit, he went too
far into a curve before turning, then overcorrected, and went into a spin. While the physics of the moment could have resulted in any number of
trajectories, his car hit the point of a guardrail precisely at the middle of the driver's-side door, which crushed the left-side of his chest.
My basic list of cautions for parents of teen drivers
- Safer teen driving starts with informed, conservative decisions about whether teens get behind the wheel of a car in the first place. Teaching teens to operate a vehicle safely is Step 2.
- Driving is the leading cause of death for people under age 20 in the United States.
- Safer teen driving is everyone's concern. In 2010, nearly 2,000 teen drivers died, but their crashes killed more than 3,000 passengers, other drivers, and pedestrians.
Father of Reid S. Hollister, age 17, a driver, who died in the early morning of December 2, 2006, the result of a one-car accident
on the evening of December 1, at Exit 34 on Interstate 84 East in Plainville, Connecticut.
I am at the Governors Highway Safety Association conference in San Diego, where I had the chance to see and sit in the world famous Google self-driving car. It felt like standing next to the Wright Brothers on 1903!
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