How To Prepare Your Teen-Aged Driver

I decided to write this article because this is something that I am presently dealing with. My oldest Son just turned 16 and got his drivers license. While I am very proud of his achievement I am terrified at the thought of him behind the wheel alone. There are some things that we can do to help to prepare our teens to drive and to ease our minds as they become more independent.

Statistically teen-aged drivers have the highest death rates in car crashed for any age group. Motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of death for drivers ages 15-20. Feeling any better yet? Me either. Lets see how we can help prepare our teens to keep them safe on the roads.

While there are many mistake that teens make behind the wheel I want to focus on the one that I believe will save their lives. Teens driving without wearing their seatbelts. There will be a lot of excuses why they don’t want to wear them, they are not comfortable, I was only going a couple of blocks, or the dreaded you don’t why should I. That brings me to the first thing that you can do to help your teen lead by example. Wear your seatbelt every time you are behind the wheel no matter how long or short the trip. Also don’t pull out of the driveway till everyone in the car has their seatbelt on. The more comfortable your teen driver is wearing a seatbelt as a passenger the more it will be like second nature to put it on as a driver.

Here is some information that you can use to educate your teen driver as to why seatbelts are so important. Statistics show that when used seatbelts reduce the risk of a fatal injury to a driver or passenger in the front seat by 45% and the risk of less severe to critical injury by 50%. The statistics are even higher for light trucks it jumps to 60% and 65% respectively.

One of the worst things that can happen to a person in a crash is being ejected from a vehicle. Seatbelts are obviously the best way to prevent this from happening. I read somewhere that about 75% of the people that were ejected from the vehicle were killed. It also said that only about 1% of the people wearing seatbelts were ejected compared to about 30% who were not wearing seatbelts. Even if you vehicle is equipped with all the airbags you still need to wear your seatbelt, they were designed to work together not individually.

Remember that in most states wearing a seatbelt is the law. Click it or ticket is what they say here in Illinois. This is for a reason and should not be a suggestion.

Having a teen-aged driver is scary business but hopefully this information will help you to enforce some safety measurements and give you a little peace of mind in the process.