Updated October 3, 2020 . AmFam Team
If you’re a parent, guardian or adult family member of a teenage driver, then you know that helping them stay safe on the road is a top priority. After you’ve invested in driver’s ed classes, spent hours behind the wheel coaching their driving skills and prepped a safety kit for their vehicle, you might be wondering what else you can do to help keep them safe behind the wheel.
The good news is there’s a free, easy technique you can use to help boost their safety: Talk to them!
Just spending a few minutes every week talking about the biggest teenage driving dangers — and how your teen can practice defensive driving — can make a big difference. In fact, while motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of death for US teens, it’s estimated that nearly one-third of fatal accidents involving young drivers are due to preventable factors such as speeding. By making sure your teen is aware of those factors, and committed to eliminating them from their own driving, you can significantly reduce their risk of accidents on the road.
The best time to start the conversation is before your teen starts driving — but it’s never too late. Even if your teen has been behind the wheel for a few years now, it’s still a good idea to talk about safe-driving skills.
Wondering how to get the conversation started? Here are a few ideas:
Tip: To make sure you have a productive conversation, both you and your teen should put way your phones and any other devices that might be a distraction while you talk.
Whether you gather the whole family at the dinner table or have an intimate one-on-one with your teen, there are five main teenage driving dangers that should be the focus of your conversation.
The reality is that one conversation about teen driving dangers isn’t enough. You’ll need to have this conversation repeatedly, until both you and your teen are sick of talking about it — and then you need to keep talking about it even more! You can never have this conversation too many times because this is a conversation that could save your teen driver’s life.
However, not every conversation has to be a serious sit-down at the dinner table. Here are a few ideas for shaking up your communication style:
Give your teen a Free Ride card (Opens in a new tab). This is a physical reminder that your teen driver can carry with them in their wallet, purse, pocket or phone case. It will show your teen that their safety comes first — and they can count on you to help keep them safe.
There’s one more powerful action you can take to drive home the importance of safe-driving skills: be a good role model every time you get behind the wheel. Show your teen that you not only talk about safe-driving skills, but also practice them every single time you drive.
In addition, if you and your teen driver are doing somewhere together, think about letting them take the wheel. Your teen still has a long way to go before they’re an expert driver, and every minute of practice and coaching they get can help. Be sure to compliment them when they practice their safe-driving skills and reward good driving with more opportunities to get behind the wheel.
Lastly, if your teen won’t listen, don’t feel bad about taking away their keys: It’s better to have a teen who’s mad at you than a teen who’s been injured (or worse) in a preventable car accident.