Safe Roads

Teens may not get enough supervised driving practice per week, and parents rarely expose them to the hazardous conditions they’ll face as licensed drivers, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s first naturalistic study using in-vehicle cameras.

The study, released in October 2010, found that teens receive most of their driving training on routine trips along the same few routes. Few teens gained significant experience in rush hour traffic, at night, in bad weather or other commonly challenging situations.

“Until now, there’s been almost no scientific research on what parents actually do while supervising their teens’ driving,” said AAA Foundation CEO Peter Kissinger.

When parents in the study were asked about their plans for their teens’ driving, roughly half reported they wanted their teens to get “a lot of practice.” However, only a quarter mentioned plans to practice in a variety of situations and conditions.

“Driving in a variety of settings is the best way to build competence,” Kissinger said. Colorado law requires 50 hours of supervised drive time for new teen drivers. In the study, the average weekly amount of supervised driving varied greatly among families, ranging from just 20 minutes to almost five hours. Most parents (68%) reported that they had limited opportunities to drive together because of busy schedules—both their own and the teen’s.

When supervising a new teen driver, parents need to:

  • Ensure ample supervised practice in all driving situations, including frequent practice at night, in bad weather, in heavy city traffic, on rural highways and on busy interstates.
  • Share their experience to help teens see the “big picture” and spot dangers that aren’t obvious, including unexpected things other drivers might do. Parents should use “I” statements, explaining what they would do in various situations. For example, “Even when I have a green light, I always look both ways to make sure other cars are stopping, because sometimes they don’t.”

AAA has a range of tools and resources for teen drivers and their parents, many free and others available at a small cost. The comprehensive teen driving website Keys2Drive includes AAA StartSmart, a series of online lessons based on the National Institutes of Health’s Checkpoints program, which has been proven to help parents improve teen driver safety. The site also offers an online version of AAA’s Dare To Prepare workshop, and the popular Teaching Your Teen To Drive home course, a 13-lesson DVD and handbook.

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