Friday, January 29, 2010

How Do We Control The Teenage Driving Problem

By Nathan Lewit

Teenage driving is the cause of worry for lot of worldwide due to incidents of teen crashes leading to fatalities for their children on the road. The main objective towards understanding the problems related to teenage driving is to reduce the teen driver's exposure to any sort of risk, develop the necessary driving skills in them, and changing their risk taking habit.

The solution doesn't lie in changing the driving age from 16 to 18 years. This will only have an influence on the Automobile Industry and service sectors linked to it leading to job losses. There will be a large decrese in revenue for all the companies in the Automobile industry or service sectors linked to it. It will only create a problem for manufacturers, gas companies, insurance agents, and driving instructors.

It is important to educate the teens regarding driving rules and make them adhere to these rules in a disciplined manner. It has been found that lack of skills, risk taking behavior, and immaturity are the main reasons that lead to teen crashes. So it is important for the parents to guide their children to avoid such behaviors and develop sufficient skills before they hand them the car keys.

Most of the teen fatalities that have occurred in the road are due to factors like not wearing of seat belts, drunken driving, distractions on the road, crashes happening on Friday nights, and weekends mainly between 6 PM to 6 AM.

The teens also don't follow the rules such as driving with parent or qualified trainer for first three months after obtaining their driving license, avoiding driving at midnight except for some situations, wearing seat belts, and avoiding usage of cell phones. The failure to follow the safety rules has been another reason for teen fatalities.

In order to reduce exposure to risk the parents should join their children and be a part of their classes. They should see to it that their children are picking up the necessary knowledge from the class. The parents should teach defensive driving techniques to their children. It is important to let the child be aware of the driving experiences of their parents as that would prepare them to handle any difficult 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.

It is important for teenagers to join the best driver education program. The onus lies on the parents to make their children join an authorized and certified driver education program which can help them develop their driving skills. The quality of the program and instructors approach is important for helping the teenager grasp the required driving knowledge. It is important to monitor the progress of the teenager on a daily basis. It is important to explain to the teenager that the driver program is just the beginning of their learning curve to become an expert driver.