Monday, November 2, 2009

What Is The Quandary With Teenage Drivers?

By Nathan Lewit

Teenage driving cause huge problems for for parents worldwide as there are many incidents of teen mishaps and fatalities on the road of teenage driving. The necessary thing here to do is to try and understand the reasons for these accidents and bring in the necessary changes to prevent such mishaps in the future. The areas to focus on would be the reduction in risk exposure, modification of risk taking ability, and providing sufficient education to the teenager to improve their driving skills.

Simply increasing the driving age from 16 to 18 years may not be the right solution to reduce teen crashes. It will only impact several sectors of the automobile industry like manufacturers, insurance agents, driving instructors and gas companies. Both auto manufacturers and insurance agents will see a sharp drop in their revenues due to these measures.

Main reasons for the teen crashes are immaturity, risk taking behavior, lack of skills and non-adherence to safety rules. It is important to educate the teenagers about these driving and safety rules and ensure that they follow them in a disciplined manner. The parents should not hand over the car keys to their children till the time they avoid such manners and gain the necessary driving skills.

Drunken driving, not wearing seat belts, distractions on the road, and late night driving have been the reasons for teen mishaps on the road. Most of the teen fatalities tend to occur between 6 PM to 6AM mainly on Fridays and weekends.

The safety rules are not followed by the teenagers in a proper manner. They don't drive with their parent or instructor for the first three months after getting their driving license, avoid driving at midnight except for some purposeful reason, avoid usage of gadgets like phones, and wear seat belts. The lack of discipline and non-adherence to safety rules has been a major reason for teen accidents.

It is important for the parent to join their child's driving classes. They should also monitor their child's progress and help them gain the necessary knowledge as being taught in the class. The parents should make their child aware of defensive driving techniques. Another crucial thing for the parent is to share knowledge with their child regarding all their driving experiences. This will help the teenager be prepared to handle any extreme situation.

The risk taking behavior of the teenager also requires modification. It is an important job for the parents to understand the reasons that could make their child take certain risks which could prove fatal. Then a plan should be prepared to analyze the behavior of the child and make them aware of the ramification for these actions. It should be noted that a teenager's body develops many changes during these growing years and the hormonal activities of the body can influence certain unwanted decisions. So it is important to make the teenager aware of the problems that they might face if they take such risks and try to modify their behavior.

The teenagers should be made to join authorized and certified driver education programs that will ensure that they gain the necessary driving skills. The quality of the program content and approach of the instructor also plays a vital role in the knowledge grasping ability of the teen. The parent should monitor the progress of their child and make them aware of the fact that the driver program is just a start to the knowledge gaining activity towards becoming an expert driver.

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