Whether it’s putting down the cellphone, not driving with friends or adhering to a curfew, a common thread runs through safe teen driving.
Parents.
“The laws are one thing and the laws are a good thing, but it really comes back to the parents,” said Gordy Pehrson, safe roads coordinator with the state’s Office of Traffic Safety.
In 2015, the Legislature required driving schools to offer parental awareness programs. The classes are not mandatory, but teens whose parents attend have to complete 40 hours of supervised driving practice instead of 50.
According to this strategy, graduated licensure laws are as much a tool for parents as police. In other words, parents can set road rules with a firm “It’s the law” to back them up.
These laws vary by state. In Minnesota, for example, newly licensed teenagers can’t use a cellphone — hands-free or not — and can’t have more than one other teenager in the car.
(For a full primer on Minnesota's laws for teen drivers, click here.)
Enforcement of these laws is often up to drivers and their families. A survey from carinsurance.com has found that up to a third of parents are letting their children break these laws.
Michael Wheaton of Mankato, whose daughter Andrea got her license about 18 months ago, said his participation in her driver’s ed course helped remind him of the stakes.
A state trooper “pulled some pretty shocking stories of things they’ve witnessed,” he said. It was a nice refresher on provisional license laws as well as a chance to talk them over with Andrea on the car ride home.
“If she were in a situation where it was follow the law and inconvenience Mom and Dad or break the law, you inconvenience Mom and Dad,” he said.
Andrea herself says some of her fellow teenagers see the laws as common sense, but most try to find their way around them.
After all, police can’t enforce graduated license provisions without knowing the age of the driver. So enforcement of these laws tends to happen when teens are pulled over for another reason.
When it comes to texting and driving, though, Andrea Wheaton said parents are justified when they check to see if texts or data are being used when their teen is driving.
“Hopefully the kid learns a lesson if they get their phone taken away,” she said.
Surveys conducted by the Mankato driving school Safety and Respect show parental involvement fosters family conversations about safety, business owner Ryan Hammett said.
“They say it really forced the parents to talk on the way home,” he said.
Hammett agrees that recruiting parents to enforce safe driving rules is a key part of their driver’s ed program.
“They’re going to be with their parents more than they’ll be with us,” he said.
The 2015 law changes have had an effect, he said. Before, roughly half of parents attended classes with their children. Now, between 75 percent and 90 percent do, he said.
An inconvenient truth
When he’s talking to parents, Pehrson, the traffic safety expert, said parents need to “make decisions about their teen driver that place safety as the priority over convenience.”
“It’s so easy for a parent to flip their kid the keys,” he said, even if the teen isn’t ready to drive, say, at night or in inclement weather.
To take another example, parents sometimes behave differently when they learn the chances of a fatal crash rise dramatically as the number of teen passengers increases. Conversely, having an adult passenger decreases crash risk by almost two-thirds, he said.
Parents.
“The laws are one thing and the laws are a good thing, but it really comes back to the parents,” said Gordy Pehrson, safe roads coordinator with the state’s Office of Traffic Safety.
In 2015, the Legislature required driving schools to offer parental awareness programs. The classes are not mandatory, but teens whose parents attend have to complete 40 hours of supervised driving practice instead of 50.
According to this strategy, graduated licensure laws are as much a tool for parents as police. In other words, parents can set road rules with a firm “It’s the law” to back them up.
These laws vary by state. In Minnesota, for example, newly licensed teenagers can’t use a cellphone — hands-free or not — and can’t have more than one other teenager in the car.
(For a full primer on Minnesota's laws for teen drivers, click here.)
Enforcement of these laws is often up to drivers and their families. A survey from carinsurance.com has found that up to a third of parents are letting their children break these laws.
Michael Wheaton of Mankato, whose daughter Andrea got her license about 18 months ago, said his participation in her driver’s ed course helped remind him of the stakes.
A state trooper “pulled some pretty shocking stories of things they’ve witnessed,” he said. It was a nice refresher on provisional license laws as well as a chance to talk them over with Andrea on the car ride home.
“If she were in a situation where it was follow the law and inconvenience Mom and Dad or break the law, you inconvenience Mom and Dad,” he said.
Andrea herself says some of her fellow teenagers see the laws as common sense, but most try to find their way around them.
After all, police can’t enforce graduated license provisions without knowing the age of the driver. So enforcement of these laws tends to happen when teens are pulled over for another reason.
When it comes to texting and driving, though, Andrea Wheaton said parents are justified when they check to see if texts or data are being used when their teen is driving.
“Hopefully the kid learns a lesson if they get their phone taken away,” she said.
Surveys conducted by the Mankato driving school Safety and Respect show parental involvement fosters family conversations about safety, business owner Ryan Hammett said.
“They say it really forced the parents to talk on the way home,” he said.
Hammett agrees that recruiting parents to enforce safe driving rules is a key part of their driver’s ed program.
“They’re going to be with their parents more than they’ll be with us,” he said.
The 2015 law changes have had an effect, he said. Before, roughly half of parents attended classes with their children. Now, between 75 percent and 90 percent do, he said.
An inconvenient truth
When he’s talking to parents, Pehrson, the traffic safety expert, said parents need to “make decisions about their teen driver that place safety as the priority over convenience.”
“It’s so easy for a parent to flip their kid the keys,” he said, even if the teen isn’t ready to drive, say, at night or in inclement weather.
To take another example, parents sometimes behave differently when they learn the chances of a fatal crash rise dramatically as the number of teen passengers increases. Conversely, having an adult passenger decreases crash risk by almost two-thirds, he said.
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