{"id":21151,"date":"2013-10-02T11:42:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T11:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/?p=21151"},"modified":"2015-04-03T00:22:33","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T00:22:33","slug":"tim-hollister-and-the-inconvenient-truth-about-teen-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/blog\/tim-hollister-and-the-inconvenient-truth-about-teen-driving\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Hollister and the Inconvenient Truth About Teen Driving"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Not-So-Fast\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Since well before seat belts or airbags were introduced, driving has been pitched to us as the ultimate and unassailable social freedom. For teens especially, the appeal of a fast car full of friends is pretty deeply entrenched, reinforced as it is by advertising and the entertainment media. If, for example, you\u2019re a parent being asked by your newly licensed teen if they can pile up in a truck with their friends and head to the beach, you might not think twice about letting them go.<\/p>\n

The only problem is that, for teens, it\u2019s far more dangerous than we think it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last ten years or so, science has pretty well shown that the human brain is not fully developed until we reach about ages 22 through 25,\u201d explains Tim Hollister, the author of Not So Fast<\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0a new book on teen driving safety. \u201cAnd the last part of the brain that develops is the part that provides judgment and restraint.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, teen drivers are in far more danger behind the wheel than adults are. Neurologically, teens are not yet hardwired to properly judge the consequences of their actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s why we talk about teens as being excitable and impulsive,\u201d says Hollister. \u201cThere\u2019s a physical reason for that, and it doesn\u2019t really go away until they reach their mid 20s.\u201d<\/p>\n

The science is new, and not many parents understand how much danger a 16-year-old brain can really manage. That doesn\u2019t change the facts: Teen drivers cause twice as many accidents as any other age group. The presence of other teens in the car dramatically increases the risk of a crash<\/a>. Almost half of all teens text while driving, which makes a crash 23 times more probable. And the most likely place for a teen to die is behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

Tim Hollister\u2019s message is that your teen\u2019s little trip to the beach isn\u2019t nearly as harmless as it sounds. Driving is a dangerous activity at the best of times, but for teens, it can be more than they can handle \u2013 and parents need to know where to draw the line.<\/p>\n

That line can be a lot harder to draw than even the most conscientious parent can understand. For Hollister, it took the loss of his son, Reid, to discover just how much he didn\u2019t know \u2013 and just how much there was to teach.<\/p>\n

A year after Reid\u2019s crash, he joined a task force convened by the Governor of Connecticut in the wake of several multiple-fatality teen driver accidents. \u201cServing on that task force, I got a re-education about the dangers of teen driving,\u201d says Hollister. \u201cI learned that in the year I had supervised Reid\u2019s driving, I really had not been the well-informed parent that I thought I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reviewing the available literature, Hollister found that there was an understanding gap for parents about the safety of teen driving. People assume that Driver\u2019s Ed and a state-issued license should do the trick, but the reality is much starker.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I try to tell parents is that your son or daughter can be a straight-A student and a model citizen and have 10,000 hours behind the wheel \u2013 it doesn\u2019t speed up their brain development,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just not a matter of personality or training or good intentions. It\u2019s something that takes time until they grow into adulthood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, there is no such thing as a safe teen driver. Too many dangers are converging at once. Apart from the neurological immaturity, safe driving requires a great deal of time to master. 50 to 100 hours \u2013 the range within most parents operate \u2013 is simply not enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experts say it takes three to five years of driving before anyone can get into that category of being a safe driver,\u201d Hollister notes. \u201cIt\u2019s been shown that new drivers look at the perimeter of the car. Their objective is to make sure they don\u2019t hit anything. So what they don\u2019t do is, they don\u2019t look down the road at the developing traffic situation, which is how you avoid a crash \u2013 to anticipate what\u2019s coming 100, 200, 300 yards down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kind of situational awareness that makes a safe driver comes only after more elemental skills are already acquired \u2013 making it extremely difficult for teens who are effectively thrown into the deep end of the pool and expected to learn everything at once.<\/p>\n

Hollister points out, for example, that since teens are often taught by their parents in familiar surroundings, they have to learn to navigate on the fly. On their own, on their way to somewhere they\u2019ve never been before, they can misinterpret the GPS and get distracted, or worse, get lost. \u201cThe only thing worse than a teen driver is a lost teen driver,\u201d Hollister stresses.<\/p>\n

All these dangers exist even before the specter of distracted driving starts to loom. And with the breakneck proliferation of electronic devices to teens, another poisonous element gets added to the witches\u2019 brew \u2013 with laws, as ever, struggling to keep up with the statistics. Anti-texting laws do exist now in most states, but they don\u2019t ensure that your teen will stay safe.<\/p>\n

Neither, in Hollister\u2019s opinion, do the licensing laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because the teen has reached the age where they can legally drive doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s a good idea for that teen to start driving,\u201d Hollister says. \u201cThis is the difference between the age of eligibility and the age of responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the new findings in neurology underlying his case, Hollister insists that parents should be far more cautious about their teens getting behind the wheel than the law requires. Not every 16-year-old is ready to drive, and it\u2019s up to families to make responsible choices concerning their teens\u2019 readiness. There\u2019s a lot at stake, and you don\u2019t get a second chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is for parents to understand and not kid themselves about how really dangerous teen driving is,\u201d says Hollister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since well before seat belts or airbags were introduced, driving has been pitched to us as the ultimate and unassailable social freedom. For teens especially, the appeal of a fast car full of friends is pretty deeply entrenched, reinforced as it is by advertising and the entertainment media. If, for example, you\u2019re a parent being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":25776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/25776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrivesafely.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}