There is a rite of passage that every new teen driver will experience that exists in order to train, test, and confirm that the young person will drive responsibly, safely, and intelligently. Parents have their own gauntlet to run associated with their children's new endeavors, which includes shopping for teen auto insurance and making sure they act responsibly and obey the law. Parents need to compare the expense of including the teen on their auto insurance policy or getting a separate policy for the teen. Parents also need to enter into a contract with their teen to agree to behave responsibly behind the wheel.
Teen Driver Laws
Laws governing the issuing of learner's permits and driver's licenses vary from state to state but all are intended to give an inexperienced driver ample training and education to develop a competent level of skill driving a car. In California, all teens who want to eventually obtain a drivers license must first complete a driver education course. Most driver education courses are offered at high schools or licensed driver education schools and entail 30 hours of classroom instruction or the equivalent online activity.
Learner Permits
After successfully completing a driver education course, obtaining a learner permit will allow the young student to drive a car with an adult supervisor. For the six months that follow obtaining the learners permit, all youth under the age of 17 ½ must pass a driver's training course. With a licensed instructor approved by the DMV, the student must receive at least 6 hours of behind the wheel training. Add another 50 hours of parent supervised practice and the teen is ready to apply for his driver's license.
Graduated Driver Licensing
Due to the high fatality rate among inexperienced drivers and their passengers in the first month of licensed driving, experts in the field of highway safety have developed the Graduated Driver Licensing System. Most states currently employ a system of graduated driver licensing that includes laws and regulations to usher young drivers into the driving population gradually. The system limits the new driver to less risky driving situations first, then increasing the level of difficulty as the driver gains experience. A typical initial phase of graduated driving may prohibit the teen driver from driving at night, driving on freeways or super highways, and driving with other teens in the car. As the teen gains competency in the first driving level, he will be allowed to take on more demanding driving situations.
Passenger Restrictions
Peer pressure from passengers is a considerable distraction for a teen when driving. The risk of a fatal accident is significantly greater when there is one teen passenger than when there are none. The risk of having a fatal automobile accident increases with the number of teenage passengers. For this reason, all graduated licensing systems include passenger restriction as part of their program. In California, a 16 year old driver may not have another teen passenger in the car for a period of 1 year. As a result of the law restricting teen passengers, fatalities in these situations have decreased dramatically.
The Need for the "No Trunking" Law
Even laws with the best intentions can backfire, as in the case of restricting teenage passengers for teen drivers. To circumvent the passenger restriction clause in graduating driving laws, teen drivers have now encouraged their teen friends to ride in the car's trunk when going to the mall or movies. They feel that they are outsmarting the law by doing this, but they are also unwittingly exposing their friends to enormous risk. Fatalities from this activity have now started to become another horrible statistic. As a result, many states have now imposed a "no trunking" law to prohibit teens from engaging in this insane activity.
Parents Need to Become a Factor.
If parents are willing to share the responsibility of allowing their teens to drive, they need to have the teens handle the consequences of their own mistakes. Make a contract that the teen will share in paying for the cost of auto insurance, and that the teen pay for his or her own traffic tickets and damage repairs. In this way parents can help their teen drivers become more mature behind the wheel. For the teen driver, driving a car is fun, but it also is a grown-up activity, with grown-up consequences. When a teen learns to drive, this is the modern equivalent of a tribal right of passage for a person, to transition from a child into adulthood. The more the teen realizes that, the more responsible a driver he will become.
