by Brent Wall

THE FIRST FEW months behind the wheel can be an exhilarating milestone on the road to adulthood, but for too many beginning drivers – and their families – their inexperience leads to tragedy and heartbreak.

Every day in the United States, about seven teens age 16-19 die due to motor vehicle crashes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Per mile driven, people in that age group are nearly three times more likely than drivers age 20 and older to be in a fatal accident.

State of Michigan officials tell us that the first year behind the wheel is the most dangerous for teens, and that one out of every five 16-year-olds will be involved in a crash during their first 12 months in the driver’s seat.

My colleagues and I have worked with more than 100,000 teens and young adults to prepare them for getting their driver’s license, and I can tell you that the stereotype of the joyriding bad boy actually is fairly rare in real life.  Do reckless young drivers exist?  Sure, but most of the youths we teach approach driving with caution and really want to be accident-free when they are behind the wheel.

The sad truth is that responsible and well-intentioned teens die in car accidents, too.  Numerous peer-reviewed studies have found that inexperience is the root of most accidents; novice drivers simply aren’t used to juggling the many sensory inputs we experience at the wheel of a car, from gauging an approaching car’s speed to estimating proper braking distance for their own vehicle.

A recent paper published by the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that a majority of teens committed one or more critical errors while on a test drive with researchers, from missing traffic signs and signals to pulling out unsafely into oncoming traffic.  None of these errors had anything to do with speeding or illegal behavior like drinking and driving, but rather to unfamiliarity with the physics of maneuvering in traffic.

I remember once a student pulled out onto Stadium Blvd. just as a semi was bearing down on us, I had to grab the wheel firmly and force us to make a quick lane change to avoid that semi from crashing into the rear of our vehicle.  The student made that move because of their lack of experience and understanding of how fast the semi really was traveling and what it would take for our vehicle to speed up to the flow of traffic quickly and avoid any potential accident with the semi.

What can parents do to coach their young adults into safe driving habits?

• Review driver training materials with your teen.  There is lots of great information online on various websites.  Also if you are reading this and you/your young adult took from All Star, our curriculum talks about the general physics and how to deal with multiple inputs while driving.

• Maximize practice behind the wheel.  It’s one thing to drive a car around an empty parking lot and quite another to handle complicated city intersections, highway merging or even the afternoon congestion on the roads outside of high school.  The Philadelphia study noted that parents tend to spend a lot of time on basic vehicle operation skills when coaching their teens, but not enough time on tactical driving skills like learning to judge the speed of oncoming traffic before making a left turn.  Parents can help with this by providing commentary when they are personally driving the vehicle and their child is in the passenger seat.  By talking through all that the parent is thinking while driving, where their eyes are scanning, when and why they choose to make the safe moves they make, etc. they can provide positive examples of how their child when in similar situations, should deal with them as a driver.

• Work on the distracted driving issue.  Electronics and vehicles don’t mix.  Lock smartphones in the trunk or otherwise detach them from your young driver, and yank the stereo wires if you have to.  Be strict.

• Encourage healthy habits.  Some research has found that sleep deprivation plays a significant role in teen driving errors.  We all know that young adults are prone to erratic sleep habits and chronic tiredness, but be alert for signs that your child’s judgment is impaired due to tiredness or stress and hang up the keys until another day.

• Don’t pressure anxious teenagers to drive. As a driving instructor, I’m always delighted to see young people grow into trustworthy and responsible drivers.  And adding another licensed driver to the household can really relieve parents of chauffeuring duties and help our busy schedules.

But I also know that not every 16-year-old is ready for the road.  If your child is timid or frightened about driving – or even simply not interested, for now – don’t press it.  When they are ready, they’ll let you know.

Brent Wall is President of Ann Arbor-based All Star Driver Education and a veteran driver training instructor.  Contact All Star Driver Education via AllStar@AllStarDE.com or (734) 665-7374.