by Lisa Frederiksen
“Nearly 60 percent of high school students say their 
parents are the biggest influence on their driving,” says Dave Melton, a driving safety expert with the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, as reported in a Liberty Mutual PRwire piece on October 19. In addition to the more obvious actions contributing to a teen’s potential for a car accident – text messaging, speeding, road rage, number of passengers – there is driving while under the influence. With such a significant influence (60%), parents can go a long way to modeling the behavior that can help keep teens safe in this situation as well. When going out to dinner or to an event or to a family holiday celebration, if a parent drinks alcohol (regardless of how moderately) and then drives, they send the message that there is some level of drinking and driving that is safe.
The following two ads bring this point home so well…
National Teen Driver Safety Week was established by Congress in 2007 to focus attention on the nation’s epidemic of teen car crashes and to find solutions to lower teen drivers’ fatal crash risk. Liberty Mutual offers a driving Ground Rules contract for you and your teen to sign – it may be a great place to start safe driving discussions.
This is a subject that unfortunately comes up way too often. Just today I found out 2 kids from my hometown died as a result of alcohol related car accidents. There are ways we can watch for risk factors of teens drinking and not always making the best decisions. See an article I wrote about young teens beginning to drink http://www.allaboutaddiction.com/is-the-drinking-age-getting-lower-and-lower-teenage-alcoholism/ The more we are all aware of how to keep our roads and teens safe, the better the outcome.