Distracted Driving

Distracted driving is a potentially lethal consequence of our obsession with smartphones and staying connected. In particular, smartphones, teenagers and cars are a dangerous combination: teenagers love social networking and have precious little experience behind the wheel. Texting and cellphone use in general should never mix with driving — especially for your teenage sons/daughters. Yet how do you prevent them from driving while distracted? Here are 10 of the best techniques:

1. Set a good example. If your teenager sees you texting and otherwise fiddling with your smartphone behind the wheel, why should he/she do any differently? Whether he/she acknowledges it or not, your teenager pays attention to your behavior and imitates it. Forget this important point, and the rest of these tips become a hundred times harder to pull off.
2. Make a family rule that the driver’s smartphone is to be turned off or put on standby. By participating, you set a good example (see the previous point), and develop the correct mindset in your teen, which is that drivers should only use smartphones in emergencies.
3. Familiarize your teen with the horrifying statistics on driving while distracted. Teenagers think they are invincible, but statistics indicate otherwise. This is information you owe it to your teenager to share.
4. “Gorilla tactic” — Put your teens on a limited usage cellular plan to force them to be selective when texting, rather than write a message any time a thought pops into their head. Limited plans also motivate teens to discourage their friends from texting them.
5. This gorilla tactic will work even better if you make your teens pay their cellular bills. The perception that texting and phone use in general is a freebie only makes them more careless and carefree when using their cellular device(s).
6. Make sure your teenager knows how to set up the phone’s Bluetooth in the car, and knows how to use voice-free commands, if the vehicle is so equipped. Cars with hands-free technology help keep the driver’s eyes on the road, but if your teen is trying to figure out how to use this technology while driving, he/she will become that much more distracted.
7. Moving beyond smartphones, your teen should understand the driver’s seat is not the place for personal grooming. Combing hair, applying makeup, brushing teeth, shaving — your teen has probably thought about doing all of these and more while waiting at a stoplight, or perhaps even while actually driving.
8. In addition to grooming behind the wheel, eating behind the wheel is risky business, but all too common among teens. As with all of these tips, setting a good example is extremely important. If your teenager sees you scarfing down a supersize burrito on the way to a swim meet, what do you think he/she will try when you’re not looking? Eating and driving should never go together.
9. Teach your teen to pull of the road when distractions are inevitable. For instance, if your teen driver is lost, it’s far safer to pull over and carefully read a map or navigation screen than to improvise while driving. Same holds true if there is a heated argument among the passengers, or if a passenger spills a cup of hot coffee. Slow and steady wins the race! That dictum is not exactly intuitive to a teenager, so you will have to repeat this advice frequently.
10. Pay attention to your teenager’s friends. This is a sound practice for a multitude of reasons, and driving safety is certainly one of them. If your son/daughter hangs out with kids whose noses are never out of their smartphones, it’s likely your child is doing the same when out of your sight. If you have concerns, at least you will know there is a problem and be able to address it — the first steps in solving any teenage problem.