For as long as I have been writing this blog, two constant refrains for parents of teen drivers have been, “Don’t put your own convenience ahead of your teen driver’s safety” and (quoting traffic safety expert Dave Preusser), “Don’t entrust your most precious cargo to your least experienced driver.”
Recently, I was talking to a father of a newly-licensed seventeen year old. He proudly explained that the first thing he did with his new driver was turn over to her the duties of transporting her younger sister, fifteen years old, to school and activities. “My wife and I went out and had a drink,” he proudly said.
I pushed back politely, repeating the two mantras above. He replied, “Well, she’s only going short distances, and how else is she going to get the practice?”
Yes, teens need practice. But what I tried to convey to this father is that making a newly-licensed teen a chauffeur for a younger sibling or siblings is very risky, and perhaps most important, doing it for parents’ own convenience is creating risk for a wrong reason. I understand that parents revel in their teen’s promotion to the ranks of licensed driver, and having a teen drive a younger sibling is very convenient, but the evidence is that a teen driver with one or more passengers elevates risk, and siblings are not only not better passengers, in some cases they are more distracting than friends. There are situations where teens driving siblings is a necessity, but parents need to be attuned to when it is essential and when it isn’t.
