Teenage Driving And The Related Issues

Teenage driving cause huge problems for for parents worldwide as there are many incidents of teen mishaps and fatalities on the road of teenage driving. The necessary thing here to do is to try and understand the reasons for these accidents and bring in the necessary changes to prevent such mishaps in the future. The areas to focus on would be the reduction in risk exposure, modification of risk taking ability, and providing sufficient education to the teenager to improve their driving skills.

Simply increasing the driving age from 16 to 18 years may not be the right solution to reduce teen crashes. It will only impact several sectors of the automobile industry like manufacturers, insurance agents, driving instructors and gas companies. Both auto manufacturers and insurance agents will see a sharp drop in their revenues due to these measures.

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.

Drunken driving, not wearing seat belts, distractions on the road, and late night driving have been the reasons for teen mishaps on the road. Most of the teen fatalities tend to occur between 6 PM to 6AM mainly on Fridays and weekends.

There are several safety rules laid down by the authorities for the safety of these teenagers but they don’t follow these in a proper manner. Teenagers are supposed to wear seat belts, avoid using gadgets like phones, and avoid driving at midnight except for some practical reasons and drive with a parent or instructor for the first three months after receiving their driving license. The lack of discipline amongst teens to follow these rules is a major concern.

In order to reduce risk for their teen children the parents should also be a part of their driving skills learning program. The parents should partner with their child to teach them defensive driving techniques and driver safety rules. The parent should also share their own driving experiences with their children. This will help them become more mature and prepared to handle any adverse situations.

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.

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