While taking a road trip with your family can be stressful at times in and of itself, you might be feeling even more stress or anxiety if you have a teenage driver who’d like to get behind the wheel during your trip. Although it’s important for your teen to get some real experience driving if you want him or her to ever be comfortable driving on their own, you might be hesitant to allow your teen to drive in this particular situation. So to help ease your mind and give your teen the exposure that he or she so desperately needs, here are three tips for allowing your teenage driver behind the wheel on a family road trip.
Make Sure They Know The Laws
Before you set off your on road trip, you should encourage your teen to research driving laws for every state or country that you’ll be passing through. According to Lorrie Walker, a contributor to SafeKids.org, this includes knowing exactly what the seat belt laws are and requiring them of each passenger in the car, understanding how yield laws and roundabouts work, and laws about driving in the left lane while on highways or freeways.
Also make sure that your teen knows and understands all the various vehicle documents like registration and insurance. If the car is theirs, then it’s even better if you encourage them to do research and come to you with various insurance options for an insurance. Consider reaching out to a New York source from AutoInsureSavings.org who could talk to you and your teen regarding young drivers’ insurance and the liabilities it may cover. Needless to say, you may have to do this when they first get the car and are only beginning to drive.
By having your teen learn all this before they get on the road, you’ll convey the seriousness of driving during the road trip (and always) and help him or her learn the proper way to drive in various areas.
Limit All Distractions
To help your teen be a safe driver during your road trip, you should do everything in your power to keep all distractions away from your teen while he or she is behind the wheel. To do this, DMV.org recommends that you as the parent take care of all navigation, music control, and the noise level going on in the car. If your other children or passengers are too distracting to your teen driver, you should switch to the driver’s seat instead so that everyone in the car can be as safe as possible.
Keep Their Time Behind The Wheel Short
With your teen having such little driving experience up to this point, USAA.com advises that you try to keep your teen’s time behind the wheel short. Consider not having him or her drive for more than an hour or two at a time before taking a break. By doing this, you’ll help minimize your teens nerves or anxiety about driving. You’ll also be able to keep his or her fatigue to a minimum.
If you have a teen who wants a turn driving on your family road trip, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you and your teen feel safe about allowing this to take place.
