-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Direnfeld [mailto:garydi@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 11:11 AM
To: Police c
Subject: Teen drivers and parental influence..
Please circulate... and best of the season to you!
(Consider submitting to your local newspaper - feel free to add your comments.)
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T'is the season to think about teen drivers and parental influence.
According to a December 2, 2003 report by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, 15.8% of Canadian drivers reported driving a vehicle within two hours of consuming alcohol in the past 30 days and of the 1.4 million drivers who report driving when they thought they were legally impaired, 21% admit to doing so four or more times. (www.trafficinjuryresearch.com)
Scary stuff, and to ratchet this up a notch, consider this: A study conducted jointly by the University of North Carolina's Highway Safety Research Center and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) showed that children whose parents had three or more crashes on their North Carolina driving records were 22 percent more likely to have had at least one crash compared with children whose parents had no crashes. Likewise children whose parents had three or more violations were 38 percent more likely to have had a violation compared with children whose parents had none. (Insert found on www.hsrc.unc.edu/directions/2001/grad_licensing.htm )
This does not bode well for young drivers who statistically have the highest crash record of any age group. With more than 6,000 teen deaths and more than 400,000 teen injuries annually across North America, this is certainly a major concern to all parents.
So this begs the question, just what are we teaching our children and if we can clearly influence bad driving behaviour, can we as parents influence good driving behaviour?
New research published in the journal, “Health Education and Behavior” (Vol. 30(6), pp 659-708, December, 2003), suggests parents can influence safer driving behavior in their teen drivers. This research conducted by the Department of Public and Community Health, University of Maryland, College Park, looked at Maryland’s new graduated licensing and wondered if it empowers parents to place greater restriction on newly licensed teens’ driving. Accordingly they found that not only does graduated licensing reduce teen driver car crashes, but that there is a relationship between parental restrictions and reduced risk driving behaviour in teens. In other words, those parents who imposed greater restrictions on their teen drivers when able to drive independently, had teen drivers who engaged in less risky driving behavior. Parents can influence teen driving behavior, whether or not they are in the car!
These findings are consistent with prior research looking at the influence of parental monitoring on teen behaviour produced by the University of Wisconsin – Extension (http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cty/grant/tap/2001/2001surveyresults.html ). These finding suggest that parents who demonstrate higher degrees of parental monitoring have teenagers who are less likely to smoke, drink and get pregnant.
So there you have it. Parents still rule.
The challenge though is not in conducting research to demonstrate that parents still hold sway in terms of their teen’s behaviour, but in providing them supports and tools to get the most out of the influence they do have.
Therein lies the importance of safe teen driving programs like the “I Promise Program” – www.ipromiseprogram.com. This and any similar program helps parents understand their position as role models of safe driving behaviour and then has them enter into safe driving contracts that clearly specify limits and expectations. Taken further the “I Promise Program” even provides a means of monitoring by virtue of a rear window decal that invites reports on driver behaviour – akin to a Neighbourhood Watch program.
T’is the season for safe driving concerns. Of greatest concern is teen drivers and parental influence. Want a New Year’s resolution? Check out the website, www.ipromiseprogram.com. Encourage parents of young drivers to enroll in the program and use this season as the starting point to driving safely year round. Together, if there must be a dent, let’s take a dent out of those teen injury and death statistics.
This year is especially important as the World Health Organization's World Health Day's theme this year is road safety. This is the year to promote all efforts to reduce car crashes! www.who.int/world-health-day/2004/en/
Best of the season to you and yours!
Gary
Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW - Executive Director
Interaction Consultants / I Promise Program Inc.
20 Suter Crescent,
Dundas, Ontario, Canada
L9H 6R5
(905) 628-4847
garydi@sympatico.ca
Teen safe driving: www.ipromiseprogram.com
Parenting: www.yoursocialworker.com
Gary Direnfeld is a social worker and expert on matters of family life. He is in private practice (Interaction Consultants), writes and provides workshops and is the developer of the "I Promise Program" - teen safe driving initiative. Search his name on GOOGLE.COM to view his many articles or click on either of the above websites. Feel free to call him for your next conference and for expert opinion on family matters. Courts in Ontario consider Gary an expert on child development, marital and family therapy, custody and access recommendations and social work.