Safety Tips for Teenage Drivers (and the Concerned Parent)

Turning 16 is an exciting age for most teenagers. It’s their first taste of adulthood and freedom, and it comes with a new (but most likely used) car. For parents, it’s both an exciting and frightening time. Their baby’s growing up, but a car comes with an array of responsibilities and potential hazards that can make any parent go gray.

Both parents and teen drivers should know the best kind of car for a new driver and what to expect when on the road, but with the number of options and the amount of information that can be found, it can be overwhelming to find the safest car for your budget.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), there are safe, used cars for nearly any budget (the cars listed range from around $5,000 to $20,000). They have four recommendations that buyers should look for when car shopping:

• Young drivers should stay away from high horsepower. Vehicles with more powerful engines can tempt them to test the limits.
• Bigger, heavier vehicles protect better in a crash. There are no mini-cars or small cars on the recommended list. Small SUVs are included because their weight is similar to that of a midsize car.
• ESC – technology that helps drivers maintain control of their vehicle during extreme steering maneuvers by keeping the vehicle headed in the driver’s intended direction – is a must. This feature, which helps a driver maintain control of the vehicle on curves and slippery roads, reduces risk on a level comparable to safety belts.
• Vehicles should have the best safety ratings possible. At a minimum, that means good ratings in the IIHS moderate overlap front test, acceptable ratings in the IIHS side crash test and four or five stars from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Buying the car is simply the first step and the truth of the matter is this: safety features in a vehicle are great to have – accidents happen. But the best way to avoid accidents is by paying attention to the road.

“I’m not worried about you driving; I’m worried about everyone else.” This a common phrase and it holds some truth, however, being safe while driving is a responsibility that is placed on every driver’s shoulders.

In the digital age, texting and driving has become exceedingly common. With the current teenagers who are learning how to drive, they’ve never existed in a time where cell phones were not a cultural norm. The comfort with technology leads people to believe that they can handle driving and texting safely.

Despite this, numbers don’t support this claim.

Taken from the Texting and Driving Safety website, the statistics provided reveal that texting and driving is never safe, no matter how it’s justified.

Texting While Driving Causes:

1. 1,600,000 accidents per year – National Safety Council
2. 330,000 injuries per year – Harvard Center for Risk Analysis Study
3. 11 teen deaths EVERY DAY – Ins. Institute for Hwy Safety Fatality Facts
4. Nearly 25% of ALL car accidents – National Safety Council

Texting While Driving Is:

1. About 6 times more likely to cause an accident than driving intoxicated – VA. Tech Transportation Institute
2. The same as driving after 4 beers – National Hwy Transportation Safety Admin.
3. The number one driving distraction reported by teen drivers – CDC

Texting While Driving:

1. Makes you 23X more likely to crash – National Hwy Transportation Safety Admin.
2. Is the same as driving blind for 5 seconds at a time – VA. Tech Transportation Institute
3. Takes place by 800,000 drivers at any given time across the country – National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
4. Slows your brake reaction speed by 18% – HumanFactors & Ergonomics Society
5. Leads to a 400% increase with eyes off the road – Health Research Funding

In other words, be safe. No text is so important that you should risk not only your life, but the lives around you. So often, we think about life or death situations in regards to driving, but it’s more than just that – becoming paralyzed, losing a limb or some other body part, enduring some sort of brain damage, or even just damaging your car – none of that is worth a text message. Put it down. It’ll be there when you get to where you’re going.

Unless it’s a time-sensitive message and you’re a real-life Ethan Hunt… but if that’s the case, then you have bigger things to worry about.

BEST CHOICES FOR TEENS UNDER $20,000.

These cars run more expensive but have better safety features.

GOOD CHOICES FOR TEENS UNDER $10,000.

These are still solid choices for teenage drivers but a bit less expensive.