Monday, November 2, 2009

What Is The Quandary With Teenage Drivers?

By Nathan Lewit

Teenage driving is a serious issue of parents worldwide due to regular occurrences of teen crashes and mishaps on the road. The important thing is to understand the reasons for such occurrences and reduce the risk taking habit of the teen drivers. The other areas to improve are to reduce the exposure to any sort of risk and teach the required driving skills to these teenagers.

The change in law to increase the driving age from 16 to 18 years is not the solution to this problem. This will only impact the Automobile industry and its related service sectors. It will be a big blow to manufacturers, driving instructors, gas companies, and insurance agents. There will be a sharp drop in revenues for the manufacturers as well as the insurance agents due to the change of law.

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.

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 parents should also help in modifying the risk taking behavior in their children. The chemical reaction of hormones and other pattern changes in the teenagers' body makes it difficult for them to avoid their risk taking behavior. So it is important for the parents to formulate a plan and approach regarding traffic safety for their children. It is necessary to understand the situations where the teenager might take risk for the sake of enjoyment. The parents should then help these teens to carefully analyze the repercussions of their act. This might lead to modification of the risk taking behavior for the teen.

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. - 16887

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