Like most adults, I look back over some of the things I did in my youth (hitch-hiking, partying, smoking …) and thank God I made it through those years alive. They all seemed like good ideas at the time and everyone I knew was doing the same stuff. I put my life at risk many times without really thinking about what could go wrong. Now I know I was very, very lucky.

Good driving schools are worth their weight in gold but there are a lot of scams out there too. I’m a certified driving instructor myself and went to school with people I wouldn’t let my daughter get in a car with. So how do you find the right school and instructors?
Start by asking around. What schools did other families choose and why? Listen to their answers. A cheap price should not be the primary reason. Did the classroom instructors interact with students and encourage them to ask questions? Did they pose a lot of ‘what if’ scenarios and encourage students to think about why collisions happen and how to avoid them? In the car, did they focus on coaching the student or run errands and make phone calls? Was their attitude positive and encouraging or angry and punitive?
Google possible driving schools and find out what people are saying online about them. One or two bad reviews could be sour grapes but repeat comments by identifiable parties are bad news Stay away from them.
Is the school a member of the Driving School Association of America (DSAA) or a similar association? That’s a good sign because members must abide by a code of ethics and are committed to staying up to date in the industry.
You owe it to your teen and yourself to find the best driving school you can and make sure you get good value for your hard-earned money. Remember – if the price sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

1.  Parents give commands instead of instructions.  ‘Turn here’ is a command and it’s open to interpretation just the way ‘clean your room’ is. In the latter, you could find the room vacuumed, dusted and perfectly organized.  More likely, you’ll find the clutter swept under the bed and an avalanche when you open the closet door!

 When you need specific results, your instructions need to be very clear.  Break them down step-by-step.  Every driving maneuver has 3 parts: The Approach (when they get into the correct position to execute the maneuver), The Maneuver and The Resume (when they move back into traffic).

 2.  Parents don’t demonstrate the maneuver first. 

Even though you’ve been chauffeuring them for years, most teens haven’t really been watching what you’re doing – at least, not in a way they could replicate.  Demonstrate each maneuver before you ask them to do it.  Explain what you’re doing –step-by-step as you do it.  Then make sure it’s clear by asking some questions. Use diagrams to make your points clear. 

I read about a mom who was teaching her daughter to make a left turn on a busy street.  She told her to ‘move to the left” and the daughter moved all the way to the left side of the road into oncoming traffic!

3.  They concentrate on the mechanics of handling the car and forget to teach where to look.  One of the biggest challenges for new drivers is to get their eyes up and keep them looking ahead 15 seconds down the road – instead of on the car in front of them.

Drivers need to be sweeping their eyes across their mirrors and the roadway regularly.  By scanning the road effectively, they’ll be able to recognize potential hazards before they become problems and react appropriately.

4.  They don’t talk about safety issues like seat belts, speeding and driver distractions.  Yes – teens see the commercials but they don’t always sink in, which is why these issues are linked to so many teen driving tragedies every year. 

Talk about important safety issues and create a family agreement with rules and penalties for breaking them.  Parents and teen drivers should sign it.  This makes certain everyone understands the rules and also provides your teen with an excuse for doing the safe thing.  (“If I get a speeding ticket, I’ll lose the car for a month …”)

5.  They invest time and effort into teaching their teen to drive safely but don’t ensure their son or daughter’s friends have had similar training.

Half of the teens who are killed in crashes every year were riding as passengers.  Make sure you talk with other parents about the importance of teaching their teen to drive safely too and be selective about who you allow your youth to ride with.  Forwarding this article to family and friends is a good start.

More than 2/3 of parents teach their teens to drive. If you’re one of them, make sure you do it right. Their lives depend on it.  Here are six of the biggest mistakes parents make when teaching their teens to drive:

1.  They take a “do as I say, not as I do” approach to driving.  If you don’t want your teen to talk on their cell or text while driving, hang up your cell first. 

Take a mental inventory of all your driving behaviors and decide which ones you’d like to see your son or daughter copy.  Then change the others.  The sooner you become a role model as an alert, defensive driver, the better. Don’t wait until they get their learner’s license. They’re watching now. 

2.  They don’t have the vehicle checked out first.  Make sure your car is in excellent working condition.  Pay special attention to the brakes, tires and windshield wipers.  New drivers need all the help they can get.

3.  Parents hand over the keys and let the teen drive on public roads without practicing basic skills in a deserted parking lot first.  New drivers need to learn basic vehicle handling skills before they’re ready to interact with other traffic. 

Under no circumstances, allow a new driver to drive home from the licensing office after getting their first level license.  They don’t have the skills and in their excitement, they won’t be concentrating on the road either.  I read about one mom who did this and then complained when other drivers became impatient and honked at them. Duh! 

Keep in mind that allowing teen drivers to rush into situations they aren’t prepared for could endanger you both or scare them so much they become overly nervous drivers.  Let your teen driver progress and build confidence gradually. Sometimes that means saying ‘no’.

4.  They don’t schedule their driving practice.  We’re all busy and if it’s not on the schedule, something else will always pop up.  Be flexible but try to stick to your schedule as much as possible.   Teens need 70 to 100 hours of driving practice in the first year.  (That’s about 2 hours per week.) It’s hard to find the time (I speak from experience) but really critical to helping them develop the survival skills they need.

Note : At least 10 hours of that driving practice should be at night. 

5.  A lot of parents concentrate the driving lessons during the long, sunny days of summer.  That’s great but don’t forget to extend the lessons to cover driving in all conditions including rain, snow, high winds, etc.

6.  After the first few lessons, parents ride along but stop coaching.  Maintaining that 360-degree awareness around the vehicle is one of the toughest skills new drivers have to learn.  Parent-coaches must continue to watch and coach until the new driver is capable of safely driving on their own – even though they think they can.

http://teenslearntodrive.com/?p=5882

By Guest Blogger, Helen Rymore

The statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) are alarming. Teens aged 16 to 19 are involved in fatal car crashes at three times the rate of those over the age of 20. Teens aged 16 to 17 are most at risk for being involved in a car crash. More teen males are killed in car accidents than females.

Immaturity and inexperience are the prime reasons cited for the increased crash rate for teens.  To overcome these, teens need experience driving and to face the challenges of the road, but with the involvement and supervision of parents. Understanding the causes of collisions involving teenagers can help parents teach their kids good driving habits and skills.

Distracted Driving

It’s not just the cell phone and texting that can cause a driver to be distracted. Driving with friends in the car has shown to put teens at greater risk for having a car crash. In fact, for every additional passenger in the car, the risk increases. This is one reason behind many that graduated driver licensing laws have been implemented in most states.

Alcohol Use

No state allows teens to drink. Yet in 2009, 33 percent of 15- to 20-year-olds involved in fatal collisions were drinking alcohol, reports the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Start talking with your kids today about underage drinking and never drinking while driving and you’ll help reduce this risk.

Inexperience and Immaturity

Young drivers just don’t have the experience yet to be safe drivers, and this, combined with their inclination to take risks, are the leading causes of teen car crashes. Teen drivers are more likely to be involved in a collision due to driver error, speeding, going too fast for the road conditions, overcorrecting around curves, and other mistakes. They don’t have the skills to see and respond to road hazards appropriately. Even teens that have taken driver’s education courses and training make poor decisions on the road. It’s the nature of a teenager to believe they can take risks and not be harmed.

Banning driving altogether may keep your child safe from driving for a short time, but eventually they need to learn to drive and gain experience in order to be a safe driver. To help keep your teen safe on the road, follow the driving laws in your state and provide your teen with as much experience as possible before letting him drive by himself. The NHTSA and IIHS also recommend implementing your own step-by-step graduated driving plan that gradually gives your teen more freedom with the car, rather than just handing over the keys the day they get their license. Also set strong rules for your teen when driving, such as zero tolerance for drinking alcohol or speeding.

Keep in mind that teenage driving crashes are not limited to risk-taking males. Good kids with high grades and teens that don’t tend to take risks can still make serious mistakes on the road simply because they don’t have experience driving. This makes it important for all teens to have restrictions placed on their driving until they gain more experience.

by Kala Bell

Through various news reports this past week, it became known that Chapel Hill, NC had become the first city in the United States to enforce cell phone use by drivers, including the use of hands free devices. Since the law was originally put into place, the town has gone onto place multiple additions onto the ban.

The new ban in Chapel Hill now states that drivers over the age of 18 are prohibited from using a cell phone or related technology while driving. There are waivers for use of cell phones for contact with spouses, immediate family and emergency. Violators will be forced to pay a $25 fine in accordance.

Now that a law like this is in a decent-sized city such as Chapel Hill, what does this mean for the future, specifically regarding teen drivers? It’s likely that the enactment of such a law in a college town like Chapel Hill will inspire other towns to do the same. Right now, there is a need for state and local governments to work on the fight against distracted driving and movement here should trigger others to do the same.

The initial ban of only Chapel Hill will not have a huge short term impact on teens across the country, but it could have a major long term effect. For teens and distracted driving, minimizing usually starts with building awareness at a young age. With bans such as the one in Chapel Hill, it would mean better awareness at a younger age. For example, think about the fact that kids riding in a car would rarely, if ever see their parents using a cell phone, reinforcing the importance of keeping distractions to a minimum.

Certainly texting and driving, as well as other distractions, provide one of the biggest obstacles in teen driver safety. The changing-face of technology also makes things difficult as mobile products and other devices become more of a necessity. Laws such as the one enacted in Chapel Hill may be the only way to minimize distractions, but that is not necessarily a sure thing. In many areas, laws such as these are still in a testing mode of sorts, analyzing whether or not they can be successful and teach lessons.

It’s unknown how much of an impact this new ban could have on teen driver safety in the US, but it’s safe to say that there is a more focused approach to improving safety for drivers these days. As long as the national and local governments continue to put resources towards safer driving practices, teen driver safety should reap some long term benefits.

Kala Bell is a creative writer from the University of Michigan. As an aspiring writer she specializes in writing about safe driving and community issues.

Teens can learn to drive by enrolling in a driving school.  The “3 Keys to Keeping Your Teen Alive” Program encourages teens to learn to drive with a professional instructor.  But parents are also needed to reinforce the lessons through structured practice sessions with their teens.

One driving school is not the same as the next.  There are 2 basic types:  

• Schools that primarily train drivers in how to drive a car so they can pass the driver’s test and get their license. 
• Schools that provide new drivers with the basic skills in how to drive a car so they’ll become safe, responsible drivers.  These schools encourage parents to reinforce the lessons through structured practice sessions with their teens.

This fact is clear from an article that appeared in my local newspaper recently about driving schools that are ferrying teens 3 to 4 hours from the city to rural DMV offices to take their road tests. They do it because there’s less traffic there so the road test is easier and teens are far more likely to pass on their first try. 

The problem with this approach is, of course, that these new drivers will not be driving on rural roads with very little traffic.  They’ll be driving on complex city streets with plenty of noise and multiple lanes of speeding cars.  Passing the rural test will give them increased confidence in their driving skills even though those skills aren’t adequate to keep them safe on the roads they’ll actually be driving.  The result could be disastrous.

And driving schools may not be as regulated as your local restaurants. At least those restaurants have signs in the window that tell you how they did in their latest review by the Board of Health.  There’s no such thing for many driving schools.  Even if the schools were reviewed, it’s near impossible for parents to find out how they fared.

And – considering the important job they do, you’d think there would be strict standards that apply to all driving schools, but there aren’t. Some schools operate within DMV guidelines, others don’t.  Some don’t even ensure that their cars are road-worthy.  

So – what CAN parents do to find a good driving school for their teens?

Look for a course that includes in-car segments on a closed course, like a parking lot, where teens can learn without worrying about other cars.  Lauren suggests that they also learn in their own cars, if possible.  (This way you have the added security of knowing the vehicle is roadworthy.) 

The driving programs should also have a number of elements.  AAA (the American Automobile Association) suggests that driving courses:

• Provide significant supervised in-car instruction over an extended period of time because teens take time to learn
• Have a performance-based curriculum that includes:
  • Risk management skills
  • Decision-making skills
  • Visual training
  • Nighttime driving
  • Involve parents/guardians and encourage collaboration between them and instructors
  • Use a multi-media approach that includes computer-based methods, simulations, demonstrations, and gaming
  • Provide consistent, appropriate messages
  • Deliver their program at an affordable cost

Guidelines for Choosing a Driving School

1.  Check out the school:
• How long have they been in operation?
• What is their BBB (Better Business Bureau) rating?
• What do their facilities look like?
• If they provide cars for the teens to drive, look at the cars and see if they are in good shape. (Take someone with you who knows about cars)
• What certifications do they hold?
•  Ask about the training of the instructors. What certifications do they have? (Ask to meet the instructors if possible.)
• Do they have (or use) a closed course for some of the lessons?
• Do they teach in-car and in the classroom?  (How many hours of each?)
• Do they provide cars or allow teens to drive their own vehicles?
•  Have they surveyed past students to determine the effectiveness of their program?
• Do they use computers in their program?
• How many students do they have in a class?
• What is the student-to-instructor ratio?
2. Is the school recognized by your insurance company?  (Will they provide a discount on insurance when your teen passes the course?)
3. If you need more information to make a good decision, ask if you can sit in on part of a class. 

Cost

Of course, cost is a factor in choosing the right course, but don’t let it be the determining factor.  Keep in mind that good courses will provide you with an insurance discount, which will offset part of the expense.  (And avoiding one crash is worth the investment – especially if there would have been injuries!)

Also know that the least expensive schools often keep their prices low by having very large classes and providing very little in-car training.   They are not a good investment.