Once again let me spotlight a seemingly simple Vanderbilt observation that, on closer examination, is more complicated and also  important for teen drivers and parents to understand:  Judging the speed of cars is difficult — both the ones we are driving and the others on the road with us (p.93).

Here in Connecticut, this difficulty in judging speed was the prime cause two years ago of a crash in which two teens died.  A police officer in hot pursuit was driving on a four lane arterial road next to a shopping mall at an estimated 90 MPH.  The teens began a U-turn across the road. Mostly likely they saw a vehicle approaching, but had no idea, and no way to know, that it was going so fast, so as they made their leisurely U-turn, the police vehicle reached their location much more quickly than they expected, and hit them broadside.  The officer most likely had trouble judging how long it would take the other car to turn.

Vanderbilt offers two critical insights into judging speed.  The first is that the higher the driver is — that is, the higher the driver’s eye level in relation to the road — the better able the driver is to judge how much ground the car is covering — not necessarily miles per hour, but at least the rate of speed and how long it will take to go from Point A to Point B.  The second is that it is easier to judge the relatively speed of a vehicle going in the same direction as your car and much more difficult to perceive the speed of a car or truck going in the opposite direction, especially on a narrow road.  This second insight explains in part why two lane roads, one lane in each direction, are generally the most dangerous, as compared to limited access highways where the only vehicles we are in contact with are those going in the same direction.

Two take-always for parents of teen drivers from these observations:  First, vehicles with driver eyesight elevations that are low to the ground are more problematic for new drivers — they add an element of risk, greater difficulty in judging speed.  Second, when parents, acting as air traffic controllers, plan a route for their teen drivers, avoiding narrow two line roads where judging speed of oncoming vehicles will be necessary is a good planning tool.

(I may be unusually attuned to this topic because my wife and I are about to downsize, moving from a home to a condominium.  And perhaps this topic is a bit of a stretch, so if you regard it as such, please take it as a spoonful of lighter fare on this very serious blog.)

It stands to reason that property values are higher on lightly traveled, quieter streets, such as cul-de-sacs and streets with other forms of speed reduction and traffic calming.  Mostly likely, even city dwellers, those who don’t mind the bustle, like living on side streets.

So the question arises:  if your teen driver is prone to either speeding, in the formal over-the-posted-speed-limit sense, or just driving too fast for conditions in your neighborhood  — racing down a street where little kids are present and use the street for a playground — might that hurt your property value?  It is not too far fetched to consider a realtor or neighbor talking about a street as “less then desirable” because of “teens that live here and drive too fast.”  We have all seen those lawn signs that say “Drive like your kids live here.”

Teen driving as a pocketbook issue for parents.  Food for thought!

In driving as in life, we respond to criticism in part by pointing out success, or at least the absence of catastrophe:  “Well. I didn’t hurt anyone, so how bad could it have been?”  If our driving manages not to draw the attention of law enforcement or not result in injury to others or damage to a car or property, we not only count ourselves lucky but also competent.

Vanderbilt’s point, of course, is that this thinking is wrong.  Simply because bad driving — following too closely, speeding, not wearing a seat belt, continually running yellow/red lights, etc. — has not earned a ticket or caused a crash does not mean our driving is acceptable, much less safe.  My friend and auto expert Jim MacPherson tells the story of a elderly person who drove accident-free for 45 years and then got into a serious crash, all because she had been doing what when had been doing for all of those years without consequence: following the car ahead closely.

Two pointers for parents of teen drivers arise from Vanderbilt’s observation.  First, because parents are role models for their teen drivers, it is doubly important that we not measure our role modeling by tickets and crashes.  Avoiding law enforcement and getting away with what we know are unwise if not dangerous practices, especially if followed by a new driver, does not constitute being a role model.  Those setting the example need to follow the rules of the road and best driving practices at all times.  Teaching teen drivers where they can cut corners, literally or figuratively, or push the safety envelope is not responsible parenting.

Second  we cannot measure teen drivers by whether they have earned tickets or have crashed, because if the posts on this blog demonstrate anything, it is that a teen driver who has never had a crash and never received a ticket is still a beginner and high risk driver.  A teen driver who has escaped tickets and avoided crashes is on a good path, but still should be counted as little more than lucky.

Measuring ourselves or our teens by tickets and crashes is a trap for the unwary.  Try to steer clear of it.

If a teen is arrested, it is hard to envision that parents or guardians will not find out, but the situation is different with tickets or citations where the teen driver is allowed to continue driving from the spot of the traffic stop.  Typically, when law enforcement issues a ticket, the ticket goes to a central processing facility (either county, regional, or statewide), which then mails to the driver’s address a notice of license suspension (relatively rare) or a fine or penalty (far more common), along with a court date on which the driver can contest the ticket.  Thus, whether parents find out may depend on whether they monitor their teen’s mail.  In states that have moved to email notifications, of course, there will be even less likelihood that parents find out through the central processing facility’s notification. It is also possible that a ticket or citation that is not contested and becomes a conviction, or becomes a conviction after a court hearing, may be reported to an insurance company, and a higher premium might be the parent’s notification.  We should also bear in mind that once a teen turns 18, the so-called “age of majority,” a variety of additional legal and privacy rights kick in, and a parent or guardian may not be legally able to be informed of any driving violation.

There are a variety or procedural possibilities here, and it is impossible to summarize how these situations are handled across the country.  The point for parents of teen drivers is that every state is different, and you should inform yourself of what your state’s rules and practices are; and if there is any way that you can have your state’s motor vehicle department or court system report to you if your teen receives a ticket or citation for driving misconduct, by all means sign up to be notified.  Tickets or citations are huge red flags for parents and guardians.  As noted in my post “Traffic Tickets As Teaching Moments,”  April 7, 2010, parents and guardians not only need to use such occasions to increase their oversight and reinforce warnings, but indeed to overhaul their teen’s driving privileges.  But parents and guardians cannot take these steps if they don’t know that a ticket or citation has been issued, or if they only find out weeks or months later — or after a crash.

The article points out the increased risks that teens with ADD or ADHD face when learning to drive and when licensed.  It notes their inability to focus for long periods of time, and the inattention to the driving situation, or elevated tendency toward risk taking, or both, that can result.  Several academic researchers quoted in the article warn that teens with ADD or ADHD simply may not be ready to drive at the legal ages of 16 or 17, that postponing the start of driving may be the only realistic answer, and that at a minimum, teens who take some form of drug therapy for their condition must be sure to have taken their regular dosage before driving.

I know this topic.  Reid was diagnosed at age 12 as having observable, though not clinically significant, ADHD tendencies.  From then on, through his teen years and when he started driving, he took Ritalin and later Adderall to maintain his focus, and to my knowledge he understood the additional risk and never drove without having taken his medicine, including on the night of his crash. He had his license for eleven months without even a fender bender when he crashed. Having said this, I will always be left to wonder whether his ADHD condition contributed to his skid and his crash, and we will never know for sure.

Here is the link to Mr. O’Neil’s excellent article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/health/add-and-adhd-challenge-those-seeking-drivers-license.html?ref=todayspaper

Example Number One:  Vanderbilt’s observation (page 183) that the most dangerous place on any road is a sharp curve at the end of a long straightaway.  This makes perfect sense:  on a long, straight, uncongested stretch of road, drivers pick up speed, often going above the speed limit, and are then confronted with a sudden need to slow down to take a curve left or right. Drivers often proceed into the curve at a faster speed than the road designers intended, and the physical consequence is that the force on the wheels becomes uneven, and a skid and a spinout are often the result.

This is how my son died.  On Interstate 84 East, he was on the two mile straightaway directly east of the Town of Southington, crossed into Plainville, and then was confronted with the sharp turn to the right where the speed limit suddenly goes from 65 to 50.  He want too far straight into the curve, overcorrected, went into a spin and hit the end of a guard rail.  Please refer back to my March 17, 2011 post on “The Physics of Skidding.”

The lesson in this for parents, guardians, and those who supervise teen drivers is to think carefully, with your teen, about the route that they will be driving every time they get behind the wheel.  In my April 20, 2011 post entitled “Air Traffic Control” I encourage parents to act like an air traffic controller by establishing, each time a teen drives, a flight plan — route, timetable, passengers, weather conditions, return time, check in procedures, etc.  So let us focus on the route.  First, new drivers should not be allowed to drive a route that you, as a supervising adult, are not familiar with.  Second, and most importantly, you should review the agreed upon route in your mind and out loud with your teen, and consider whether there are locations on that route that are potentially unsafe, such as a curve at the end of a straightaway, as Vanderbilt describes;  a left lane merge onto a busy highway; a stretch of three or four lane highway where drivers are constantly changing lanes to get to exits; places with poor visibility; roundabouts with multiple entry points, etc.  You should either instruct your teen to take a route that avoids these more dangerous places, or at very least make sure to warn your teen what he or she will face in that location.  I am sure that one part of my son’s crash was that he was one a road that he had never driven before, and so he was mostly likely surprised by the curve to the right and the sudden decrease in the speed limit.

Another lesson here is the danger of joyriding.  You can’t control your teen’s route or warn of a dangerous place if you don’t know where they are going.

Finally, I note that there are now technological ways, GPS systems, for parents to actually track where their teens are driving, so if you map out with your teen an exact route to be taken, or point out an especially dangerous place that should be avoided, there are tracking systems that allow parents to monitor compliance.

The study Abstract says: “About 2 out 10 drivers (18%) report that they have sent text messages or emails while driving; about half (49%) of those 21 to 24 years old report doing so.  More than half believe that using a cell phone or sending a text message/email makes no difference [NHTSA's emphasis] on their driving performance, yet as passengers, 90 % said they would feel very unsafe if their driver was talking on a handheld cell phone or texting/emailing while traveling with them” (my emphasis).

Wow.  We think texting or emailing while driving is safe when we do it, but not when we are the passenger and the driver is doing it.  I can only speculate as to the psychological explanations for this phenomenon, but they probably include that when we are texting and driving, we are at least in control of the situation — we can put down the phone or stop texting or emailing when we think we have to, which another driver may not. We are confident in our own abilities but somewhat blind to our limitations when it comes to dangerous behavior.  Only when we observe texting and cell phone use do we really appreciate how dangerous it is.

I wonder if part of the answer here is for better warning messages from our electronic devices.  For example, in most vehicles with a dashboard mounted screen, the standard warning that appears when the screen first comes on is something like, “Please do not let this screen distract you from your driving.”  Maybe it should say, “You may think that it is safe for you to text or email while driving, but it is not –  think about how you passengers will feel if you do it.”

Lastly, if 49 percent of drivers aged 21 to 24 confess that they text and email, then the percentage must be much higher among 16 to 20 year olds.  Scary stuff.

During the past year it has been my privilege to work on several projects with the National Organizations for Youth Safety, www.noys.org.  NOYS is a national coalition of 65 agencies that serve youth in a variety of areas, including traffic safety, wellness, substance abuse, youth violence, and bullying.  NOYS reaches about 80 million people in the U.S. with its outstanding website and excellent, numerous communications.  NOYS has been kind enough to highlight this blog and its posts on several occasions.

NOYS has now launched a new effort to reach one of the most challenged and challenging audiences, parents and relatives of teens who have died or have been seriously injured in vehicle crashes.  This service is provided as a new blog called Parent Perspective.  The link is theparentsperspective.blogspot.com.  The concept is that I and a few other parents are attempting to start an online conversation about the difficulties of loss and injury involving teens, so that  parents who are struggling will know that they are not alone.  NOYS and the parents involved in the writing expect that it may take some time –  and some brave parents and relatives — to get this conversation going in such a public forum, but we think that once it is established, it will be a helpful and unique resource.  

If you know of a parent or relative who might benefit from this new source, please pass along the link above.  Thanks

I suppose we can feel badly about all of this, but the cost of driving should lead us to consider one important way that parents can control their teen drivers – through their “purse strings.”  Here in Connecticut, since 2008 when we adopted tougher new statewide teen driving laws, many parents have thanked me (and the many others who served on the Task Force that recommended the changes) for putting mandatory laws in place — laws that get them off the hook when confronted by teens who are desperate to drive in a way or at a time that our state now forbids.  Our new, stricter teen driving laws have given parents a way to say “No.” and most of them are grateful for it..

Parents should keep in mind that money is another way to say “No.”  Whether by explaining the family budget to your teen and showing what would have to be cut if the family allocated more to non-essential gasoline, or refusing keys on a particular day because of a recent, unexpected expense, the financial costs of driving are a way to exert control – and a way that teens are hard pressed to challenge.  Using your wallet to rein in a teen driver might even have the beneficial effect of teaching about the fiscal realities of life – budgeting, prioritizing expenses, pinching pennies, and saving.

So, the cost of driving is a difficult challenge for millions of Americans, but parents, whatever the family’s economic situation, should bear in mind that money is one important way to control teen driving.

In 2008, when Connecticut’s Safe Teen Driving Task Force was debating a change to its then-midnight curfew, we eventually narrowed our choices to 10PM or 11PM.  Our state’s law then, and today, provided for exceptions from the curfew, for employment, school-related activities, religious observances, health related trips, volunteer public safety service (such a volunteer firefighters), and participants in “safe rides” programs.  Still, our committee ended up needing to vote on the matter because we could not reach consensus.  A high school principal was the biggest opponent of 10 PM, arguing that it was not realistic because high school activities regularly go past 10PM.  We decided on 10PM by a single vote.

In a prior post on this blog and in my Model Teen Driving Agreement, I have provided advice on how to manage curfews, with my central points being (1) recognition of the dangers of night driving; (2)  regardless of state law, parents and teens setting up curfews that are appropriate to the particular teen driver, the driving conditions that day, and the driving situation; (3) putting an early time into a teen driving agreement; and (4) having procedures for those times when a teen needs to use once of the curfew exceptions, such as when involved in a regular job or a temporary school obligation (a play, for example) that keeps the teen out past the state’s deadline.  Also, when I speak at high school, I explain how teens can rely on the exceptions:  “If your state curfew is 11PM, and it is 11:15, and you are stopped somewhere that is on a straight  line between your school or job and your home, you’ll be ok.  But if it is 2AM and you are three towns away from home, don’t try to tell the officer that you are invoking the curfew exception.”

That 2008 vote of the Connecticut Task Force, picking 11PM over 10PM,  has continued to bother me, for this reason:  faced with the undeniable dangers of night driving for teens, we should in every case set an early time – 10 PM is realistic I think, though 9 PM is even more defensible — as a default time, and then allow exceptions from there. The reason for this goes back to the point made on this blog about the difference between purposeful and recreational driving.  If the curfew is 9PM or 10PM, this gets the “recreational” drivers and joyriders off the road, and the only ones who should be on the road after that are those who have a reason — one of the curfew exceptions – to be on the road.  These teens are more likely to arrive home safely, because the folks at their school or job and their parents or guardians at home know when they are expected to leave, when they are expected home, and the route they should be taking.  There are all risk-lowering circumstances.

So, parents, when it comes to curfews, whether under state law, in a teen driving agreement, or  for a specific situation with your teen driver, err on the side of early. Better to let teens invoke the exemptions than have teens out on the road without consequence during what we know are the most dangerous hours of the day for them as drivers.