It’s National Teen Driver Safety Week from October 20 to 26, and the road safety community has an important message: parents need to get more involved.
One group, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), an organization representing state highway safety offices, citied parental involvement as the most important factor in keeping young drivers safe on the road: “While developmental and behavior issues coupled with inexperience impact teen crash risk, parents play a critical role in helping teens survive their most dangerous driving years,” the GHSA said, and urged parents to leverage graduated driver licensing (commonly known as GDL) programs.
All 50 states have some form of the three stage GDL licensing program, which gradually grant privileges to teenage drivers during higher-risk situations, like driving at night or with peer passengers.
"Graduated driver licensing is responsible for a 20 to 40 percent reduction in teen crashes," Jonathan Adkins, GHSA's deputy executive director said in a statement. "But GDL isn't just a state or police program, it's a parent program. When parents understand how and why GDL works to address their novice drivers' crash risk and partner with their teens to enforce the proven provisions associated with these programs, good things happen."
The GHSA noted that researchers have found that teens with parents who set driving rules and monitor their activities in a helpful, supportive way are half as likely to crash, 71 percent less likely to drive intoxicated, 30 percent less likely to use a cell phone when driving, 50 percent more likely to buckle up, and less inclined to speed. Speeding as a contributor in fatal teen crashes has inched up over the past decade, the group noted, but progress in safety measures has been lacking.
To address this, parents are urged to enforce two key provisions of GDL - nighttime and passenger restrictions. "Newly-licensed drivers, particularly males, are more likely to speed at night and when friends are in the car," Adkins said. "Parents must recognize this and say no to their teens engaging in these unsafe practices. GDL helps them do that."
In addition to complying with GDL law, the GHSA offered the following tips for families:
- Focus on building higher order driving skills. Seventy-five percent of serious teen crashes are the result of critical driver error, with driving too fast for road conditions, being distracted and failing to detect a hazard accounting for nearly half. Families are encouraged to seek out guidance from trained professionals and look for programs that provide opportunities to participate in hands-on driving events that focus specifically on building skills in four key areas - speed and space management, vehicle handling and hazard recognition.
- Use a parent-teen driving agreement. An agreement clearly outlines the rules for new drivers and describes the consequences for failing to comply, while prompting an ongoing dialogue about safety. Parents are encouraged to supplement those provisions with more stringent requirements, particularly if their respective state's GDL program allows teens to transport one or more passengers or drive after 10 p.m.
- Attend a parent-teen driving program. Many organizations provide free orientation sessions, often provided at schools or other community-based settings. Currently, four states - Connecticut, Massachusetts, Montana, and Virginia - mandate parent education, while many others provide voluntary training opportunities. (Since Utah implemented Parent Nights in its “Don’t Drive Stupid Program,” that helps parents learn about the critical role they play, teen fatal crashes went down and parental understanding of the state’s GDL law increased significantly, the GHSA said.)
- Know and build upon your state's driver education and training requirements. Some states require teens to complete classroom theory, behind the wheel training and/or supervised practice, but these are just the beginning of the learning process. Parents and teens should focus on logging at least 50 hours of supervised driving practice under a variety of conditions, and look for opportunities to continue to drive together during the first year of licensure.
Two recent GHSA reports also stressed the impact parents have on what their teens do behind the wheel: Promoting Parent Involvement in Teen Driving: An In-Depth Look at the Importance and the Initiatives and Speeding-Related Fatal Crashes Among Teen Drivers and Opportunities for Reducing the Risks.
