What About Driver’s Ed?

Sooner or later every home educating parent is going to have to deal with the subject of Driver’s Ed. Like it or not, it’s part of life in our culture. When we found ourselves on the threshold of this milestone, I was scared and clueless with a capital “C”!

I came up with a simple solution… Get a horse. Yes, we’d have to pay for feed, but compared to the price of gas, why it could be a real savings Just think of all the responsibility she’d learn! And we won’t have to worry about a horseload of passengers or speeding tickets. But.. there is the clean up….never mind

OK, obviously, I’m kidding, but there are times when the horse sounds like a good solution- not nearly so scary as putting your precious child behind the wheel of a car. But the time will come and the more prepared you and your teen are, the less worry and concern (not that it ever goes away completely!) you will experience.

So let’s lets dig in and tackle Drivers Ed in the home education setting.

In recent years, laws have become stricter for new teen drivers, with good reason. Consider these sobering statistics:

16 year olds have the highest rate of crashes, including fatalities, of any age group
Driving between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. triples the risk of a fatal crash for 16 year olds
When carrying a teen (peer) passenger, the risk of a fatal crash doubles; three or more passengers and the risk for a fatal crash triples!

In an effort to decrease the risk to new teen drivers (and others on the road) all 50 states have now adopted some form of a Graduated Drivers License (GDL) format in an effort to decrease teen accidents. To find out your state’s requirements click here.

The statistics are very sobering, but the good news is, there are things that you, as parents, can do to make your teen as safe as possible. Over the next few days we’ll look at some of those things starting with the personal family considerations and guidelines.

Until then, on the practical side, you can begin looking at the practical stuff – insurance.

Some preliminary insurance questions you can begin to explore:

What effect will a child with a learner’s permit have on your insurance premium? For us, it had no effect. In our state our new driver was covered by the insurance policy of the supervising adult she was driving with. In other words, if there was an accident or violation, the insurance of the supervising adult was affected.
Does your insurance company offer a discount for completion of a Driver’s Ed program? If so, what are the criteria that program must meet in order to qualify for the discount?
Similarly, does your insurance provider offer a “good student” reward? If so, what proof is needed to qualify for this discount?

Later, as your child approaches the step to becoming fully licensed, we’ll look at other insurance considerations and questions.

However, next time we’ll look at ideas for you to consider in your home education of driver’s ed. I guarantee, you will find them thought & discussion provoking. Taking time to consider & discuss them now will provide peace of mind and a confidence that you are doing everything possible to ensure your teen’s safety.

Do you have questions or concerns you’d like to see addressed re: this important topic of homeschooling Driver’s Ed? Please, let me know by leaving a comment!

Sue

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 6:00 am 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.

2 Responses to “What About Driver’s Ed?”

1
Timothy Smith
November 7th, 2007 07:02

Dear Sue,

Thanks for your excellent advice on teen driving. For your readers, here’s 10 additional ways to help crashproof our kids:

* Commit the time to helping them become safer, smarter drivers. Teens typically get 3-6 hours of behind-the-wheel instruction in driver education programs, and it takes 30-50 hours of experience just to function well in basic traffic situations. You should plan on at least 50 hours with them over a 6 to 12 month period.

* Work with your teen in increasingly complex and varied driving environments as they show confidence and competence, in this order: parking lots, residential streets, country roads, freeways and finally, busy urban streets.

* Teach them the proper response to the following hazardous driving situations: rain, ice, snow, fog, tire blow-out and loss of power steering or brakes.

* Eliminate or reduce the most dangerous driving distractions. Using a cell phone while driving is the equivalent of having a .08 blood alcohol level. Each teen passenger of a teen driver increases the crash risk by 50%.

*Teach your teen how to emergency brake and to maintain a 4 second following distance from cars in front of them.

* Improve their visual scanning skills by teaching them to focus 2 to 3 times further down the road than they normally do, and work to double their peripheral vision.

* Sign a Crashproof Contract outlining restrictions, privileges and responsibilities associated with their use of a car, with specific rewards and penalties for attaining or violating these agreements.

* Employ education, sensible restrictions and good role modeling to reduce your teen’s risk of speeding, drinking and becoming a victim of road rage.

* Put yourself in their shoes. For part of your time driving together, get behind the wheel and have your teen make suggestions and comments about your driving.

* Instill a defensive driving mindset in your teen, where they expect others to make mistakes and violate traffic laws and are prepared to deal with it when they do.

Timothy C. Smith is a certified driving instructor, licensed SCCA racer, co-founder of the Teen Driving Academy, father of three teens and award-winning author of Crashproof Your Kids: Make Your Teen a Safer, Smarter Driver, http://www.crashproofyourkids.com.
2
Sue
November 7th, 2007 09:32

Great advice, Tim! Thanks!