The Mechanics of Safe Driving

If you are teaching your teen to drive as part of their home education, there are some important things to include in their driver’s education. These practical tips can prevent many problems and prepare your teen to deal with them safely.

Did you know that 535 fatal crashes each year are due to tire blowouts or flat tires? That surprised me. This information comes from a short quiz, Test Your Road Knowledge by Toyota and is what got me thinking about adding this post’s topic, the “mechanics” of safe driving.

In addition to teaching your teen how to drive safely and giving them the plenty of opportunities for supervised on-road experience (driving at night, in the rain, on slippery roads, fast highways, etc.), there are other factors, more practical and preventative in nature, that will help them to be safe on the road.

For example, what do they do if they get a flat tire? If possible, have them actually change one, but at the very least, talk through the process making sure they know where the spare tire, jack and manual are. Discuss where to place the jack and how to operate it, how to wedge something under the tire to keep the car from rolling and any other factors.

Teach your teen how to check their oil, tire pressure, what to do if the battery goes dead, etc.

Ford has a great series of videos covering these topics at Car Care Clinic . They include:

Checking Your Tire Pressure
Jump Starting Your Battery
Checking Your Oil
Changing Your Tire

DMV.org also has a decent series of articles on Vehicle Maintenance that is worth checking out.

Another good resource is Cars: A One Week Unit Study by Castle Heights Press. We did this study last year, although we ended up spending about four weeks instead of one. We enjoyed the break from our normal studies and enjoyed the study itself. We didn’t cover all the topics, but its coverage of basic mechanics and car maintenance were excellent.

As you prepare your teen for driving, discuss with them what to do if they are in an accident (non-serious). What information do they give out or not give out, what information should they gather. What do they do if they happen upon an accident?

Discuss, when is it safe to do these things themselves or when would it be more prudent to wait in their car for help from the authorities or someone they know. Consider letting them have a cell phone so they can call if an emergency arises. For us, the cell phone connection has brought great piece of mind.

Tackling these issues ahead of time will give your teen the ability to make wise decisions and be a safer driver, confidently knowing how to safely handle the inevitable unexpected situations all drivers encounter. Make it part of your Driver’s Ed home education!

Did I forget anything?

Sue

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Home Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.