Challenge Your Teen to 100 Days of Safe Driving

Did you know that the 100 most dangerous days for teen drivers fall between Memorial Day and Labor Day? According to The National Road Safety Foundation (NRSF), those 100 days are far more likely to result in a fatal crash for teen drivers.

It’s absolutely chilling to think about. What are parents to do? There are all kinds of fear-based options that aren’t at all practical and do nothing to help teen drivers gain experience with safe driving skills.

My suggestion is different. Don’t try to hide your teen from this reality. Instead, talk about it. Don’t just talk about the risks. Talk about the specific driving skills that will help them become responsible, defensive drivers. The NRSF calls their effort for fewer crashes the 100 Safest Days of Summer. But if you know me, you know I’d call it the 365 Safest Days. Because safe driving is for every day of our lives.

Car Crashes Are Not Accidents

“Car accident” is a very common phrase, but I never use it. Car crashes are not accidents, although they can be caused accidentally. A car crash typically has one (or both) of two causes: driver behavior or mechanical failure.

Driver behavior can cause a crash because of distraction, overreaction, ignorance or defiance of the law, aggressiveness, or impairment. Mechanical failure causes a crash when something goes wrong with the car that the driver can’t get under control. Sometimes, a driver’s reaction to mechanical failure will enter into the equation as well.

If a driver runs a red light, texts while driving, or neglects to slow down during a sharp curve, we’re looking at driver behavior. If a wheel comes off the car or the engine suddenly gives out while you’re going down a highway, that would be a mechanical failure. If a tire ruptures, and the driver panics instead of regaining control, that would be a combination.

I’m sure you can look back at every crash you’ve been in, witnessed, or heard about and sort the cause into one of these categories. The bottom line is that we, as drivers, have the ability to prevent a car crash. Teen drivers need to know this, and they need to understand it clearly. As humans, we all like to avoid blame, looking for causes beyond our control for each mistake. This is why the word accident is so popular - it shifts the blame to some uncontrollable force. We have to teach our teen drivers to resist this urge and to take responsibility for their own behavior on the road. Of course, most of us adults need to be reminded of this as well.

How Do Teens Learn Safe Driving Skills?

Teens learn safe driving skills when they are taught to take the task of driving seriously, and when they understand the importance of their role as a driver. To many teens, driving represents maturity, freedom, and more opportunities for having fun. In order for it to be any of those things, teens have to become responsible, safe drivers.

This can only happen with purposeful lessons that focus on defensive driving skills. Teaching a teen the basics of speeding up, slowing down, parking, and turning before sending them off on their own is setting them up for disaster. I’m sad to say that there are driving schools that don’t offer much more than that in their lessons. When I talk to parents who don’t feel like their teen drivers got sufficient instruction from another driving school, I have to ask them why they didn’t challenge that school for not delivering on their service. 

The way my coaches and I look at it is that we are putting one more driver on the road, and we need that driver to be someone who is safe to share the road with us and our own families. You can meet our coaches here. We’re going to be fellow drivers with that teen, and we need them to be the kind of drivers who prevent crashes, not cause them!

How we do this in practical terms is by coaching each student as an individual to teach them the skills that will make them a safe, responsible driver. We talk to our students about their driving skills and why they are important. Out on the road, we cover the information in various ways, and we constantly check in to make sure our students are alert and aware of their driving environment. We talk about what other drivers might be doing. We explore “what if” scenarios. We ask questions that give us clues about what has their attention at that moment.

We also practice everything we teach while we’re on the road. When we see other drivers breaking the law, or pedestrians not being aware of their surroundings, or traffic issues that make the road a free-for-all, we help our students make the right choices for the situation and discuss the potential outcomes.

Does it work? Does our style of coaching produce safe, defensive teen drivers? Yes! We hear from students often who say they watched an unsafe scenario unfold and knew exactly what to do for their own safety. They tell us that they can hear our voices in their head as they go through the steps. They gain an awareness that helps them predict and prevent problems while driving. They have even called to say that they caught a mechanical issue because we’ve taught them to be so attentive to the sound and feel of their car.

The Parent Challenge to Be Your Teen’s Safe Driving Coach

Coaches don’t have some kind of secret knowledge that their students can’t know. In fact, the coach’s job is to impart as much of their wisdom onto the learner as possible. As driving coaches, that’s what we do in lessons. But parents need to be coaches as well. We don’t come home with our licensed students and say goodbye to them every day before they get behind the wheel. As parents, you do, so you need to be the coach who talks about the practical aspects of safe driving.

If you’re like most parents, you’re probably in the daily routine of saying, “Be careful driving.” My challenge to you is to say more. Have a conversation with your teen driver about the real dangers on the road, especially this time of year. Fear is not the goal! Awareness and action are the goals. Talk to them about how much more dangerous driving is during the summer. Take a ride with them and do a refresher on safe driving skills - don’t forget to compliment them on the things they are doing really well! Let them know they can talk to you if they’re worried about how friends are behaving in the car or behind the wheel. Come at this conversation from a place of acknowledging their growing maturity, and you’ll be surprised at the response!

If you’re a parent at the very beginning of driving lessons, these tools are for you as well. Safe driving is always in season. My course, The Parent’s Survival Guide for New Teen Drivers, is a great resource to get started on your teen’s safe driving skills. If you have been exploring the idea of a driving school to ensure your teen learns effective defensive driving skills, we would love to hear from you. Our Driving Lessons are designed to teach teens lifelong safe driving skills so that they know how to prevent crashes during the summer and every other time of year.