Top Defensive Driving Skills to Keep Your Teen Safe
Like many parents, the teenage years may be rife with anxiety as your children begin growing more independent. Not least of your concerns may be teaching your child to drive a car safely. While learning to drive may be the most exciting aspect of being a teenager, it’s also the most dangerous. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), teen drivers aged 16 and 17 are more likely to be involved in a car accident than any other age group. However, learning to drive remains a vital element of developing independence and self-reliance in teens. Ensuring you pass along defensive driving skills is important to protecting your kids while driving, even when you’re not there.
Wearing a Seatbelt
Though this may be obvious, it’s also one of the most defensive measures your teen can take. Buckling their seatbelt could save their own life or those of passengers while driving. Half of all car accident deaths may have been avoided if the victim had properly secured their seatbelt. Instill the importance of fastening the seatbelt correctly — snugly across the hips and over the shoulder – as a defensive driving measure when your teen gets behind the wheel. Additionally, ensure they know their responsibility to check all passengers in their vehicle are properly wearing their own seatbelts. This simple defensive driving skill may just save multiple lives.
Scanning the Road
Defensive driving requires constant vigilance and awareness to ensure the driver is making the most informed decisions possible. In addition to making sure your teen is not driving distracted (whether by their cell phone or others in the vehicle), they can drive much more defensively if they are consistently scanning the road ahead and behind them. It’s often far too easy to fall into “highway hypnosis” – the condition of “spacing out” while driving. Scanning the road far ahead of your teen’s vehicle can prevent any surprises like construction zones, lane merges, or missed turns. Your teen can notice if traffic begins to slow or if a vehicle drives erratically, so they can steer clear.
Sharing the Road
Speaking of driving erratically, it’s time to discuss the one universal truth of defensive driving: your teen cannot control how other drivers drive, only how they react to others’ actions. As such, it’s your teen’s responsibility to recognize that we all must share the road. Others will certainly tailgate your teen or weave through traffic. It’s important to emphasize that “getting back” at others or proving a point is often more dangerous than turning the other cheek. After all, a predictable vehicle is a safer vehicle. Suddenly changing lanes or speed can be significantly more likely to cause a car accident because your teen became unpredictable.
Your teen can remain a steady, defensive driver by maintaining at least a two-second following distance, going the speed limit, and leaving a left lane open for others to pass, if needed.
How Retain a Personal Injury Lawyer Following a Car Accident
If your teen was involved in a car accident due to another’s negligence, despite your defensive driving teachings, you may be eligible to collect compensation for any personal injuries or damage to your vehicle. Follow these steps to contact a personal injury attorney with BD&J, PC.
- Collect documentation on your or your teen’s car accident. Keeping photos, journal entries, police reports, and insurance claims to present to your personal injury attorney at BD&J, PC, can help expedite the filing of your claim.
- Contact our personal injury team here. Complete our form to receive a call from one of our team members regarding your potential case. Our lawyers will review the information you provide and begin the process of filing.
- Stay in contact with us. Our personal injury attorneys will be keeping you informed as your claim progresses. However, we empower our clients to participate in their claim and may need to discuss the process with you.
Personal Injury Lawyers Serving All of California
At BD&J, our attorneys know that at the heart of any attorney-client relationship is trust, especially when the client has suffered a catastrophic injury. We prioritize your needs in our relentless pursuit of justice rather than taking any settlement offered as many law firms might. Our goal is to ensure you are taken care of and properly compensated for the damage you suffered. If you or your child have been involved in a car accident, regardless of your defensive driving literacy, you could be eligible to reclaim your medical bills and more. Contact us here for a free consultation with our personal injury attorneys.
