<p>We have a law in our state that for the first 9 months of a teen having their driver’s llicense they can only have one other non-relative ride with them. It came after a tragedy where 6 kids were killed in a van accident. My expectation is that my kids follow this law and if they don’t they will lose driving privledges.
In discussing this with other parents I was the only one who had this opinion!
Some comments were:
It is only a $150 fine if they are caught
It’s not really necessary for my s/d he/she is a good driver
It is up to them if they can handle other kids in the car.
Am I way out of line??</p>
<p>keymom~</p>
<p>I do not think you are “hard nosed”…just law abiding and prudent. You are teaching your kids a respect for the law and also that teenage driving can be dangerous without the proper experience under their belts. </p>
<p>I have always stressed to my kids that driving carries TREMENDOUS responsibility. I do NOT want them to have to live with the tragedy and trauma of harming another person due to inexperience or carelessness. Both of my drivers are EXCELLENT teenage drivers, very careful and conscientious.</p>
<p>I, too, have found that many around me stretch or bend the rules to suit their needs/desires. That doesn’t mean that I am “hard nosed” by NOT doing this. I just like to think of myself as responsible! :)</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>No you’re not. And not everybody thinks that $150 is chump change. As well, the other parents are scoff laws. One wonders what other laws they consider worth breaking and what respect for the law they encourage their children to have.</p>
<p>EDIT:</p>
<p>Posted at the same time as berurah!</p>
<p>Hard nosed? NO! Loving, caring, responsible and law-abiding? Absolutely! We have a similar law. Additionally, our DD was not allowed to use her car stereo for the first six months that she had her driver’s license. It may sound harsh, but we felt that all of her attention should be on the road and none of it on the radio. I will never forget a friend of mine who had a major accident the week he got his driver’s license. He admits his attention was on the radio and not on the road. Luckily, he survived, but spent several weeks in the hospital. That was 26 years ago, but I remember it vividly.</p>
<p>You are doing the right thing! Just consider the statistics on accidents. There is an exponential increase in accident rates, directly related to the number of kids in a car with a teenage driver. They need at least that 9 mos. (years is more like it!) to become minimally competent drivers.
And that doesn’t even touch on the issue of being a law-abiding citizen, and what you teach your children by example! What’s wrong with those other parents?! They should visit a neuro ICU, with cases of severe injuries in teens who have survived their accident, and the tortured facial expressions of the poor parents at their bedside. Heartbreaking.</p>
<p>Good for you, sticking to your ethics.</p>
<p>You are absolutely doing the right thing. When I was growing up, my sister and some of her friends went out of town to a concert when she was 16 without permission. They got caught and all four girls were grounded for a certain amount of time. Of the four, my parents were the only ones who followed through with the punishment for the entire time. This certainly made an impression on both my sister and me as a younger observer. I see your situation as similar. The message you are sending your child is that it’s not ok to break rules and/or laws. After all, if it’s ok to break that law then why wouldn’t it be ok to break others! Teen drivers are easily distracted and sometimes try to impress friends in the car so by enforcing this rule you are also helping to ensure safety.</p>
<p>I don’t see how a parent can say it’s OK to break the law. It’s not OK. This was also an issue among my son’s peers. He was not allowed to ride with anyone, and he was absolutely not allowed to have anyone else in the car. Once the restriction ended, he was still only allowed to have a passenger by specific permission (and I had to know who the passenger was, and where they were going). He has had his license over a year now and we are jsut starting to let up a little but the potential for tragedy is huge here. Those other parents are way off base. I feel lucky that parents in my son’s school are mostly very law abiding.</p>
<p>I echo what the previous posters have said. It is the other parents who are out of line.</p>
<p>I presume you understand liability and can explain it to your daughter. How much is that big umbrella policy costing you? The one you purchased to protect you and your family from lawsuits…which when/if she injures passengers will come knocking on your dorr? How will your daughter feel when she causes such a reality to rain upon the family she is in dispute with? Yes, it is the law but there are many more compelling reasons for you to set a limit…which affect your entire household. What a teenager wants in this instance is trumped by the “best interest of the household”. In my state it was not a law when I began driving…but my family definitely explained liability to me…and the consequences of an injury/death…I didn’t object. Your daughter/son need a lesson in finance and the law.</p>
<p>I ALWAYS mandated that my S follow this law in our state. Getting caught might just be a fine, but even a minor accident could morph into a major lawsuit if the driver were found to be breaking this law.</p>
<p>You are not out of line.</p>
<p>H and I are the proud dictators of our little family. Our house, our car, our insurance bills, OUR RULES.</p>
<p>We don’t negotiate, but we do take prisoners.</p>
<p>I guess I have a question for you…about the law. You seem primarily worried about your child as driver in your vehicle…do you also require your child to refuse to be a passenger in the vehicles of others students who break the law? I mean is this policy of yours two way…?? I should hope so. What about your kids enabling other students to break the law??? How will you feel if your child is harmed, including death, by breaking the law as a passenger?? How will your kids handle drink driving if they cannot stand up to this rule? Drink driving is not a 9 month limit but a lifetime limit.</p>
<p>" My expectation is that my kids follow this law and if they don’t they will lose driving privledges.
In discussing this with other parents I was the only one who had this opinion!"</p>
<p>That’s because those other parents don’t have good sense!</p>
<p>Stick by your guns.</p>
<p>My state doesn’t have that law, but I told S that he could not drive with anyone in the car except his dad and me until he had his permanent license for 4 months. After that, we’ll take things on a case by case basis, but I doubt that he’ll have more than one nonrelative in his car for many more months. </p>
<p>I also didn’t let my kids ride with any teen until the teen had their permanent license for 6 months.</p>
<p>I know that it’s easy for new drivers to get distracted and to make potentially fatal errors. I love my kids too much to have them killed in an accident that I could have prevented by being “hard nosed.”</p>
<p>Better to be hard nosed than grieving.</p>
<p>Thanks for the support.<br>
In answer to the question about letting them be passengers, yes they are only allowed to be the one passenger and they are very choosy about who they ride with. They know the kids who are responsible drivers.
As someone else posted both of my drivers are very responsible and safe ones I believe because they have been taught the Huge responsibility that comes with driving. We also have the no cd/radio rule for 6 months.
After posting this a friend just called to tell me about her daughter who was riding in a van last night with 6 other girls. The driver had her license for 3 days!!! They smashed into a parked car, luckily no one was injured.</p>
<p>One only need look at the stats regarding new teenage drivers to understand the reason behind such laws. Recent research indicates that teens, above and beyond being inexperienced drivers, are uniquely (probably biologically) unprepared to handle the distractions that come from passengers in a car. And this, it turns out, has little to do with being a “responsible” or “reckless” teen.</p>
<p>The teen stats are truly frightening. It was a great relief to me that my D passed through high school in an area where there was little pressure to drive. The area was quite urban, with little parking and low speed limits. Yet I still had sleepless moments.</p>
<p>So, you’re not just protecting your checkbook or teaching responsibility to the law. You may be saving someone from injury. And make sure your kid observes the same as a passenger.</p>
<p>I am horrified that you were the only parent who required her/his child to abide by the law, which is in place to protect the lives of the young drivers and those they might hurt or kill. The distraction of having a car full of other people their age is enormous and justifies the law. I can hardy believe you were alone in this. (Not questioning your veracity–just astounded!)</p>
<p>We have a similar law in our state. In fact, you are not allowed to have ANY nonrelative ride along for, I believe, 6 months after getting your license. And yes, I DID require my son to obey that law, both as driver and passenger. And I was very glad. In his first week of driving, he narrowly missed being involved in two accidents. Had other kids been distracting him in the car, who knows what might have happened?</p>
<p>My state had similarly themed laws- including a midnight driving curfew for under 18-ers… only applicable as a secondary offense (so they couldn’t pull you over JUST because you looked too young) Now, I’m a pretty good, responsible kid- but the one time I got home at 12:05 (I was driving some friends home from a concert), there was hell to pay.</p>
<p>So nope, you’re just sane.</p>
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<p>Even if it weren’t the law, it would be a safe policy for parents to follow for their 16 year old drivers.</p>
<p>I am not surprised that other parents did not care- when my oldest when to her first driver’s ed class, the one before you get your permit, she was the only one who had not already been driving. We knew people who let their 14/15 year olds drive around the local gated community (8000 residents, not exactly tiny & unpopulated) and one even let her D drive to the grocery store! My D told me about that.</p>
<p>Also, many parents disregard that rule, it’s not convenient, but it’s a great rule, my kids abide by it. Just how does one’s car insurance pay if the driver is disobeying those restrictions? I ahve heard the kids, if caught, can lose their licenses until age 180 that might be somewhat inconvenient!</p>