ALT-1 How to Teach your Teen to Drive
The best way to influence your teen's driving behavior is to be a good example in your own driving habits. This dawned on me as I was driving with my son, soon to be eligible for his learner's permit, and I realized I was driving the car while eating a bowl of cereal one morning. While my selection of breakfast food was a good example, my driving and eating was not.
It was from that experience that I realized how much we influence our teens over the years, and especially during the year leading up to their licensing. Here are some important tips to teach or lead by your own good example at the wheel.1) Direct all of your attention to the road. Do not eat a meal, talk on the phone, or complete all those grooming activities that sometimes get pushed to that last-minute in the car.2) Point out poor driving decisions and behaviors you see on the road, but refrain from using anger and profanity to note the poor driving of others.3) Clasp your seat belt before pulling away from the house.4) Comply with driving rules such as coming to a full stop at stop signs, stopping at caution lights when it is clear that the light will be red before you clear the intersection.5) Stop for gas before the dashboard light comes on. Even better. Keep the gas level at least one-half full.
Take a good look at your driving habits. Even if you have been driving for thirty years, perhaps you have acquired some habits that you would not want to see in your teen. Even those among us who are not aggressive drivers and haven't had a traffic violation since we were teenagers, can still identify things we do behind the wheel that are not good driving behaviors.
Like #5, there is one more important tip that is not a driving rule as such, but is still important in teaching your impressionable teen about the world of driving a car. That rule is to leave for work and appointments with a margin of time to be able to arrive at your destination on time, relaxed, and with time to spare.
You know how it is to be driving to work or an appointment under the pressure of having to make every traffic light or of having to find a parking space as soon as you tool into the parking garage or lot. Don't let that be part of your teen's driving habits. It is not too late to change or improve your own driving habits in order to be your teen's best driving teacher.
