Top 10 Dangerous Mistakes Young Drivers Make
There is a reason a lot of people who made it to 16 don’t make it to 18. There’s nothing funny, attractive, or romantic about dying young, when it’s someone you care about. As well, a lot of mistakes can be extremely financially taxing. If you care about your children, drill into their heads that these are mistakes they should never be making.
10. Becoming Distracted Behind the Wheel
Teenagers have this bizarre belief that they can drive even while they’re intensely distracted. Unfortunately, this lack of understanding can result in tons of property damage and even serious injuries.
9. Taking Unnecessary Risks
Stop and yield signs exist for reasons. These reasons include to check speeds and to ensure proper turn-taking behaviors at intersections. Sadly, a lot of teens forget this fact, and the results are often distinctly unpleasant.
8. Driving Too Fast
There is a certain speed that allows for easy stopping (typically, under 30 miles per hour), and a speed that allows for reasonably easy avoidance through maneuvering (typically under 60 miles per hour). Higher speeds, however, tend to result in stopping through violently colliding with things. And that would be bad.
7. Piling Too Many People into the Car
Way too often, teenagers think that the number of seats is only a suggestion. Shock and strut issues notwithstanding, having more people in the car tends to encourage reckless behavior. And, there may not be enough seat belts.
6. Driving Under the Influence
Far too many teens think that they can get drunk, high, or both, and suffer no consequences. While they might not get hangovers, they are still subject to the nervous system-suppressing effects of downers (such as marijuana and alcohol) and the over-stimulation that results from taking uppers (such as cocaine).
5. Following Too Closely Behind Other Cars
It takes approximately one car length per 10 miles per hour to stop effectively. Regardless of your reflexes, this rule doesn’t change. Unfortunately, too many teenagers don’t think of this until they’re eating someone’s rear bumper.
4. Not Buckling Their Seat Belts
Being thrown through a windshield multiplies the likelihood of death by 25 times. All you have to do to achieve this end is hit something going roughly 30 miles per hour without wearing a seat belt.
3. Being Unable to Handle Emergency Situations
Teens often believe they can do anything right off the bat. However, learning requires baby steps, much as a baby learns to do things in slow, progressive stages. In a car, it’s possible to make lethal mistakes in under a second.
2. Driving Tired
Teens think they can operate while they are tired. In class, this is true. But behind the wheel, it has been proven to be more risky than driving drunk, although both are extremely dangerous.
1. Not Properly Maintaining Their Vehicles
Keeping a car working at its best is worth the expense. Having sufficient auto insurance is also not an optional thing.
If your teens can avoid all these mistakes, there is a pretty good chance that they will live long enough to stop being teens. And, they may even do so without any crippling financial troubles.
Related articles
- Keep Your Child Safe in the Car (allenandallen.com)
- Q & A #75 With The Auto Specialist (partsandautos.com)
No related posts.
Shortlink:
Posted by
 |
 |
 |
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
And I bet the person who wrote this is 50 years old.
I remember when I was 16 we were able to pile 9 people into my tiny Mazda and I never thought twice of the possible consequences. We just saw it as fun.
“There is a reason a lot of people who made it to 16 don’t make it to 18.”
This is definitely the stupidest sentence I have come across in the last week.