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Tuesday, October 2, 2007
The Problem with Teen Drivers
Teenagers are bad drivers
Ok, I do NOT really mean that unilaterally. There are good teen drivers. But what I mean to suggest is that their lack of driving experience often causes trouble on the road.
I own an insurance agency in the Phoenix metro area. A client asked if I would teach her 16 year old son to drive.
Knowing there is no father figure in the home, I readily agreed. It would give me an opportunity to get to know this young boy as well and give him some time with a male figure, something I understood was lacking in his life.
As Chris (as I will call him) and I settled into the car I asked Chris if he yet driven. The answer was "Yes". He and Mom had driven a couple times but she got too nervous to continue.
Chris rounded the first corner and nearly hit a parked car. He did smack the curb around the next corner and almost took out two rather large trash barrels as we moved along the residential street. It was painfully obvious that Chris did not realize he controlled the steering wheel and not the other way around. Another car approached from the opposite direction and it took me pulling the steering wheel to avoid a head on collision. When Chris turned a corner he either pulled too tightly or made a wide loop. Both made me extremely nervous.
Patiently I tried to coax him into driving carefully, looking ahead, planning his approach to oncoming lights and turns. Chris got better. He improved week after week. THEN I NOTICED A CHANGE.
As his confidence grew, so did his speed. That, I realized, is probably the primary mistake most teen drivers make. They confuse experience with quality.
Chris took off from every green light as if it were a race. He stopped in much the same jolting fashion. I felt like Dale Earnhardt was behind the wheel. My requests for "slow down" fell on deaf ears. That is until we nearly were involved in a accident merging onto a freeway from an on-ramp.
My advice to Chris and all teen drivers is this: 1) do not drive faster than your experience or comfort level dictates, and 2) do not tail gate.
Ok, I do NOT really mean that unilaterally. There are good teen drivers. But what I mean to suggest is that their lack of driving experience often causes trouble on the road.
I own an insurance agency in the Phoenix metro area. A client asked if I would teach her 16 year old son to drive.
Knowing there is no father figure in the home, I readily agreed. It would give me an opportunity to get to know this young boy as well and give him some time with a male figure, something I understood was lacking in his life.
As Chris (as I will call him) and I settled into the car I asked Chris if he yet driven. The answer was "Yes". He and Mom had driven a couple times but she got too nervous to continue.
Chris rounded the first corner and nearly hit a parked car. He did smack the curb around the next corner and almost took out two rather large trash barrels as we moved along the residential street. It was painfully obvious that Chris did not realize he controlled the steering wheel and not the other way around. Another car approached from the opposite direction and it took me pulling the steering wheel to avoid a head on collision. When Chris turned a corner he either pulled too tightly or made a wide loop. Both made me extremely nervous.
Patiently I tried to coax him into driving carefully, looking ahead, planning his approach to oncoming lights and turns. Chris got better. He improved week after week. THEN I NOTICED A CHANGE.
As his confidence grew, so did his speed. That, I realized, is probably the primary mistake most teen drivers make. They confuse experience with quality.
Chris took off from every green light as if it were a race. He stopped in much the same jolting fashion. I felt like Dale Earnhardt was behind the wheel. My requests for "slow down" fell on deaf ears. That is until we nearly were involved in a accident merging onto a freeway from an on-ramp.
My advice to Chris and all teen drivers is this: 1) do not drive faster than your experience or comfort level dictates, and 2) do not tail gate.
# posted by gopi @ 10:34 PM 
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