Safe Young Drivers: A Guide for Parents and Teens. Phil Berardelli
THE ROAD
—THINK AHEAD
—FEEL THE ROAD
The themes will appear in capital letters whenever they are included in the text, because they represent important information. As the specifics of the individual lessons fade into the past, the themes should linger in the memory. Parents and teens should try hard to retain them.
INTRODUCTION FOR PARENTS
If you’re like most parents, you’ll encounter a moment sooner or later when your child makes a declaration of independence. Through word or deed, your offspring announces that your parental preeminence is over.
A typical statement:
Mom, Dad, you’re so 20 years ago!
Or:
You just don’t understand me!
Or that ultimate insult:
You’re so uncool!
Whatever. The message is clear: No more idolizing parents, no more public displays of affection; in fact no more public anything—unless it’s absolutely necessary.
That inevitable and traumatic event usually arrives when kids reach age 12 or 13, sometimes earlier. It’s a natural part of the process by which a child matures, sooner or later, into an adult. During that period—within which teenagers seem to occupy a universe unto themselves—the parent-child relationship becomes a frequently tense, occasionally explosive tug of war. Try as you might to teach and guide and lead, just as you have been doing all along, suddenly your child isn’t listening. You might even begin to wonder whether he or she has been secretly kidnapped by aliens and replaced with a look-alike monster!
I was constantly reminded of this phenomenon, not only in my own household, but also during the seven years in the 1980s when I taught seventh and eighth graders. It was a great time, some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I liked my students and, mostly, they liked me.
Once in a while, one of them would even confide, “Mr. B.,” (they used to call me) “You’re so cool. Not like my parents. They’re awful!”
Whenever I’d receive such a compliment, I’d politely thank my young suitor and reply with an invitation:
“Come over to my house,” I would say. “I want you to tell my kids what you just told me.”
The remark usually created an expression of befuddlement on the student’s face, but any parent would understand the irony immediately. My own children, of course, were not congratulating me on my coolness. To the contrary, it was all I could do to get them to listen to me. Worse, being seen in public with me would lead to their profound embarrassment. After all, I was their “Da-yad!”
There is a brief time, however, when this seemingly endless ordeal subsides. It usually happens around age 15. That’s when your child seems suddenly not so defiant, argumentative or stubborn. In fact, he or she begins to pay a little more attention and even respect to you.
It might take you a while to catch on, but your teen has been thinking ahead. He or she has realized that those dreaded parents now possess something very desirable: permission—permission to begin driving.
Among modern teens, the quest for a driver’s license is the equivalent of The Holy Grail. They can pursue it with fervor. At last, no more being driven around by a parent! Besides, all of their friends are driving. At least, that’s what they claim.
So begins a new wrinkle in the parent-child relationship. Kids cajole, promise and bargain, and perhaps they even argue logically and responsibly. Other common tactics include sulking, moaning, pouting, stomping, crying and maybe yelling—whatever it takes to obtain a learner’s permit at the earliest possible time.
In too many cases, the strategy works. Parents get worn down by the constant barrage. Children have the desire and lots of time, a powerful combination, and so they often win against a parent’s better judgment.
“I just can’t take the nagging” is a common excuse.
“All their friends are driving” is another one.
“I’d rather have them driving than their friends” is yet another.
Then there’s the old standard: “I just don’t have the time to chauffeur them everywhere.”
Sorry, but I don’t sympathize.
Many issues can bring parents and teens into conflict. Drinking, drugs and sex are common flashpoints. All require a high degree of parental responsibility, guidance and even courage.
Driving is different. It is the one area of modern life over which parents have been granted absolute authority. No one under age 18 may obtain a learner’s permit or driver’s license anywhere in the United States without parental permission. Children can protest all they want, but they may not operate an automobile without the written consent of a parent or guardian.
You might dread the issue, but you must make the decision. You are legally responsible, and state governments have been wise to make you so. Consider just this one statistic: Sixteen-year-old drivers are likely to be involved in vehicle crashes up to 12 times as often as any other age group. Although traffic deaths have declined substantially over the past 40 years, 16 is still by far the most dangerous age for drivers.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which has studied the subject for many years, motor-vehicle crashes represent the single largest health problem between ages 16 and 19 in the United States. They account for more than one-third of all deaths in this group—about 6,500 per year—and a similar share of injuries.
None of this should come as a surprise. Anyone even moderately aware of the issue knows that the youngest drivers have the most crashes. Back when I was writing this book, one rainy spring afternoon a 16-year-old kid in a light pick-up truck smacked into my parked car. The damage was minor and he was not injured, but the experience is very, very common.
A few years before that, I was driving near my home in Northern Virginia. As I approached an intersection, another teen the same age swerved around a corner and smashed into me. He had lost control of his car. He had been driving only a few months. I ended up with a sore neck and a bump on my head, and he was somewhat traumatized, but otherwise we both were okay.
Others have not been so lucky. The news too frequently contains tragic stories involving young drivers. The challenge is how to get them through their first years unscathed. After age 18, the odds begin to improve—though slowly.
In the United States, teens can obtain drivers’ licenses at a younger age than in most other industrialized nations. In fact, in 42 states, teens can obtain learner’s permits under age 16—including eight that actually allow kids under 15 to begin learning. Ten states do not require supervised instruction of any kind, though the other 40 wisely have installed graduated licensing.
Such thoughts were uppermost in my mind when I taught my own children to drive. Unlike my youth—in rural Western Pennsylvania, where a childhood friend and I learned the nuances of a standard transmission in an ancient Studebaker, bumping over fields and little-traveled dirt roads—the vast majority of us today live in densely-populated areas, where main arteries are multi-laned highways with speed limits of 65 miles an hour or more.
It’s unfortunate, but we cannot rely solely on driver-education classes or commercial driving schools to inculcate our children. Year after year, school programs are subjected to funding cutbacks and they are not nearly thorough enough. Likewise, even the best commercial instructors can’t teach everything.
Most state driving exams tend to concentrate on rules and regulations. They require very little in the way of real driving skills. Parallel parking seems to be a major component, for instance. License requirements remain as undemanding as they were years and years ago, when the volume of motor vehicle traffic was only a fraction of what it is now. In my own state, Virginia, the driver’s