Recently, I read an article in Car and Driver Magazine entitled “the Debate”, where two of their editors argued about the factors parents need to consider when choosing the right car for their teen driver. This is a debate that’s decades old in principle and is typically confined to the writers’ opinions on how to choose the right car based on comparing the inexperience of the teenage drivers against the safety and technology of newer vehicles.
It’s not the first article of this type that I’ve read. Nearly every week, someone is promoting their views, opinions or recommendations on what parents should consider when choosing a vehicle for their teen driver. Virtually all of these articles, however, are biased on the side of newer, safer vehicles over older, easier to insure cars with lower safety standards. That fact shouldn’t surprise anyone because after all, at the center of the decision or debate is the life of a teen and to any parent, that life is priceless and irreplaceable. So, shouldn’t we expect the safety standards of the car to be the determining factor?
Having read hundreds of these articles over the years, I find myself at odds with the majority of them because in my view, they’re generally built around the wrong premise. The majority are founded on the premise or “belief” that a teen driver WILL be involved in a crash (at some point)—it’s inevitable. As such, the determining factor comes down to how a parent will answer this question; WHEN the crash occurs, what type of vehicle is your teen most likely to walk away from alive and uninjured?
From my perspective, based upon nearly 2 decades of researching teenage vehicle fatalities, that’s the wrong question. The question we all should be asking is, what type of education and training would best enable my teenage driver to safely drive any family vehicle that’s sitting in the driveway? When the expectation is that a crash will occur, we’re taking the position that crashing is a legitimate form of learning to drive and in doing so, we’ve set the standard (or bar) pretty low.
When we value the safety standards of our vehicle choice higher than we do the skill training for the teen behind the wheel, what message are we sending to our teenage drivers? Should any of us really be surprised by the number of crashes, injuries and fatalities involving teen drivers when we prominently promote buying them vehicles that will protect them from the lack of skills we failed to equip them with? How many teens have to die before we stop believing experience is the key to developing skills?
The definition for experience is taking an exam for a lesson you’ve not yet learned. My question is, what if the first exam is the fatal one? It often is and in those tragic circumstances, the only thing experience taught any of us is we should value skill based education and training higher than we do the safety standards of the vehicles we purchase for our teens to drive. This isn’t just my opinion, it’s supported by the studies, surveys and statistics.
According to a Volvo study in 2019, they found that;
- 33% of parents admit they don’t introduce their teen to riskier driving environments such as rain, heavy traffic and nighttime driving during the supervised (permit) driving period.
An AT&T study found that;
- 70% of parents admit they allow their teen to drive between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. even though they know its not legal to do so on their Provisional License.
Should we then be surprised to learn that according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA);
- 40% of teenage vehicle fatalities occur between 9:00 pm and 6:00 a.m.
This is the precise time many were never trained to safely deal with, and they failed the “exam” that experience forced them to take.
That same AT&T study also reported that;
- 67% of parents allow their teen to drive with multiple teens in their vehicle.
And again, according to NHTSA;
- 63% of teenage vehicle fatalities occur with multiple teens in the vehicle.
For the record, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), ranks driving with teen passengers as the 2nd leading factor in teenage vehicle fatalities.
I’m in no way suggesting that parents shouldn’t consider the safety standards of a vehicle when choosing the right one to purchase for their teen. But I am suggesting that we, as a society, stop placing the safety standards of the vehicle above the standards for which we choose to educate and train our priceless teen drivers.
When 90% of teenage vehicle fatalities are deemed the direct result of “driver error”, clearly we’ve short changed our teens on their education and training in preparation for this dangerous activity. And when 81% of parents report that the safety features of newer vehicles heavily influence their vehicle purchase decision and 55% report it’s the most critical aspect of their final purchase decision, we’ve obviously put the cart in front of the horse.
It’s time to raise the bar of expectation on our learning to drive process in this country. It’s time to reject that anything of value is learned from a crash. It’s time to recognize that the driver behind the wheel is the only irreplaceable component in the driving equation and it’s imperative that we place our highest value on that life and the skill-based preparation they deserve—not the safety features of the vehicle.
