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Hi there, Rick with Smart Drive Test talking to you today about the book
"Not so fast: parenting your teens through the dangers of
driving" by Tim Hollister. The book was published in 2013
by Chicago Review Press and is a
good read and merits the attention of parents who have learning
or novice drivers in their house.
Unfortunately, the book's motivation was the death of
Tim Hollister's son Reid who was 17 at the time
in 2006, died in a car crash on an interstate in
Connecticut, at night after a rainstorm,
and without a doubt this is a
book written from inexplicable grief
and enduring pain.
The purpose, as Tim Hollister says at the outset, is to help parents
make decisions regarding their teens and helping them to mitigate
the risks associated with learning to drive. Because for
teen drivers as group, they're at very high risk for being involved
in a motor-vehicle crash. The thesis
of the book, however, is not what the purpose is; the thesis
of the book Mr. Hollister believes is that tougher laws,
tougher GDL programs will
keep our young people safe. GDL is the
graduated driver licensing program. The first one was implemented
in New Zealand in 1987. After the
implementation of New Zealand's GDL program,
it snowballed, and by beginning of the 21st century
most industrialized countries, most of the G20 nations,
states, and provinces had
a GDL or GLP program--
graduated licensing program--in place. These have
four basic components:
1) no alcohol; 2) restrictions on cell phones - either hand-held
or hands-free cellphones; 3) nighttime driving -
most programs are somewhere between midnight 5 a.m.
that young people can't drive and finally the 4) number of passengers
in the vehicle are restricted to one passenger.
Often times in many GDL programs
that passengers is a family member:
sibling, Mom or Dad, Grandparents. Those
immediate family members are allowed in the vehicle.
But young people are restricted
on the number of passengers because it has been proven that if you have more than
two passengers in the vehicle, it tends to distract the driver
and lead to higher crash rates among young people. The book
identifies four reasons that young people are at high risk of crashing.
One of them is biology - that their brains do not
fully mature until they're age 25. Low-aim steering,
route planning and navigation, and hazard perception.
And hazard perception I am very much in
agreement with. The development of those skills and abilities
takes three to five years as Mr. Hollister states
in his text. And the reason it's so difficult is because the task of driving
is so dynamic. And all of the
circumstances that come together
the dynamic features of our roadways come together and in different situations can have
very different repercussions for drivers. So the driving task:
1) the driver; 2) the vehicle; 3) road; 4) weather;
5) traffic; 6) and light. All of those things can combine in a
multitude of scenarios
where in one scenario, on one given day is going to be completely innocuous;
on another day it is going to be lethal for
drivers and drivers have to be able to identify that and take evasive action.
It cover some other the familiar ground that we have in terms
traffic safety: distracted driving; fatigue
drinking and driving; drugs;
earphone's; GPS; all these things in terms
distracted driving which has been at the forefront of traffic safety in the
past decade and really coming to awareness of how
how much the risk of being involved in a traffic crash occurs
when drivers are using cell phones, or eating, or
combing their hair, or doing their makeup, or whatever their doing while their driving.
So, the book covers a lot of this.
Some of the new stuff that the book brings to the table which i think is really
great -
recreational driving. Teens that don't have
a destination are at a higher risk. The hours immediately after school
are also at risk. This is some new information that he brings to the table
in terms of young drivers. He also indicates that
young drivers with access to their own vehicle--not sharing a car--
are also a greater risk. So there is some new stuff that he brings to the table. There is
also some stuff that I'm not
in agreement with. In the last chapter in the book he stops just short
of advocating a
police state for young people - that we should be "dobbing" them in.
Unfortunately, this come to a real
head-on sort of collision, for lack of a better word in terms of our culture
and dobbing other people in and snitching
on people. I mean I can totally understand and be on board with his intent
but being a snitch, dobbing people in, calling
teenager's parents... I see that as being really problematic
and creating a lot of conflict for parents of young people,
and drivers, and those types of things. I think there are other solutions,
but I understand... I totally understand
his motivation. The other problem I see with
the book is is that it ignores the larger context
of driving. Driving is dangerous for all drivers and
a statistic: in the 20th century, for example, driving
killed, injured, and maimed more people then soldiers sent to war in the 20th century.
So, we're talking the first world war, the second world war,
the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the
Middle East. So, the motorcar,
in terms of the number of lives, injuries maimings, that it claims: it's dangerous for
all people.
Seniors, on the other hand, also have
a similar crash rate when compared on a per hundred thousand
kilometre rate as young people.
So, its easy to take aim
at young people and impose more rules, more regulations, and more
criteria which they have to follow to earn a full license. Seniors, on the other hand, who have a
similar crash rate,
not so easy. They have enormous political clout,
they know the system, and they have time and resources to combat
political regulations, or political moves to
impose sanctions on their driving. As well,
as the baby boomers are on the footstep, or the door sill
of retiring, these people are in
positions of power and they're the ones looking down the road and going,
"well, I'm going to be retiring in a few years, I'm not going to impose sanctions
on my own driving." So it's easy
to heap more regulations, and rules, and laws on young people to get licenses.
But I'm not totally convinced that that is the answer for
young people in order to keep them safe. I think the
relationship between parents and young people starts at a
very early age. Children learn how to drive
sitting in the back seat and watching us, in terms our reactions to traffic situations -
our attitudes, whether we speed, we follow too close,
or we fail to give the right of way, which are the top three reasons for traffic
crashes. The
relationship between parents as drivers
and young people is imperative and it needs to start
at an early age.
If this has been done, this book will augment that relationship and help you
to mitigate the risks
associated with teen driving. If that relationship hasn't been established
since the beginning, then unfortunately this book is not going to help. Thank you very much for listening.
I'm Rick with Smart Drive Test. Have a great day! And remember:
pick the best answer, not necessarily the right answer. Bye now.
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