<p>I’m a rising junior in high school and I was just wondering why parents freak out over their kid driving the highway (or is it just my parents). I was just wondering what your input is on this.</p>
<p>My friends say that the highway is actually safer than driving locally and I agree. Though if you do get in an accident, its more dangerous because you’re going at a faster speed.</p>
<p>“Though if you do get in an accident, its more dangerous because you’re going at a faster speed”</p>
<p>I’d say that’s a big yes. </p>
<p>Driving, especially highway driving, is one of the most important skills you’ll ever have to learn. Try driving on a highway that’s absolutely jammed-packed with cars, but where people are flying past the driver who’s “only” doing 70 or so. You have to learn to merge, change lanes, enter and exit carefully. You need to be aware of the cars and trucks on all sides of you, and keep a safe distance from the ones in front. It takes a lot of hours of practice with an experienced driver-- even if that driver is a white-knuckled parent.</p>
<p>Even a small driver error can be devastating when you’re traveling at 65 mph plus.</p>
<p>Well, it depends what kind of highway you’re talking about. If it’s a rural highway, with high speeds but little traffic, it’s actually probably pretty safe.</p>
<p>However, many of the highways that kids drive are extremely busy. In terms of my personal driving experience, my first highway driving was on the 401 highway outside Toronto, which is by volume the busiest in North America. It’s also 16 lanes wide in parts, and at rush hour is stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper traffic. It also has many of the deadliest accidents in Canada.</p>
<p>My parents were always hesitant about me driving highways, but in the end it came down to me needing to drive 150 km to a squash tournament (2 months after getting my license), on a weekday (partly in rush hour), down a very busy highway when they were unavailable, and then back again late that night. Was it a bad idea? Maybe (well, OK, it was probably at least a little bit of a bad idea). The parents were certainly uneasy. I wasn’t, particularly; I’m very confident of my driving abilities (much as all teenagers say that ;)). However, I completed the drive (and actually, as a result of accommodations, did the drive several times), and between that and subsequent thrice-weekly half hour drives in rush hour highway traffic for other commitments, they no longer question my highway driving ability.</p>
<p>That said, I’m an atypical case, and most of my friends drive on the highway relatively rarely, both of their own, and of their parents’, accord. It has to do with a couple of factors. </p>
<p>Firstly, a lot of people drive very erratically on the highway. This may be more of a problem where I live and drive, but there is an extreme amount of weaving in and out of traffic to try and get ahead as fast as possible. For example, when I drove that first long trip, I was cut off several times, once in a way that would’ve caused an accident had I not had very fast reflexes from the sport I play and a good sense of movement (I braked and moved left onto the shoulder somewhat, and ended up just barely not being hit by the idiot SUV that tried to jump in front of me without looking).</p>
<p>Secondly, given the higher speeds, it is much easier to lose control of the car. This could potentially be a major problem for inexperienced drivers.</p>
<p>Thirdly, as you mentioned, if one gets in an accident, it can be extremely deadly, much more so than in the city.</p>
<p>Given these things, many parents are very hesitant about allowing their children to drive on the highways with limited experience. From my own experience again, it was probably a bad idea in retrospect to allow me to make that 150 km drive (which I actually did 4 times over a Friday-Sunday to go back and forth, 2 trips late at night). For some kids, that kind of worrying is unnecessary, but for many it is not. </p>
<p>In terms of practical advice, I would ask your parents to drive with you on the highway for a couple of trips, to let them get a sense that you’re capable of driving in what they probably consider adverse conditions. After seeing you handle the conditions well, they’ll probably be less prone to freaking out. If they’re not, there’s not a lot you can do, other than continuing to try to convince them that you’re capable of driving safely on the highways.</p>
<p>Ditto, all of the above.
Plus:
Driving skills improve with experience. High school juniors don’t have much experience. </p>
<p>I was about 35 by the time I really got confident with my highway/freeway driving schools. That was after years of experience, driving on L.A. freeways.</p>
<p>High speeds = decreased reaction time. Experience behind the wheel, like practice in any sport, is what compensates for that. When you were little, you probably got hit once or twice by a ball before you learned to put your hand up for protection. Now it’s automatic; in fact you can probably also catch the ball. Much like a driver’s reaction to the glimmer of a red brake light in front of him - no thought whatsoever to releasing the gas and hovering over or lightly applying the break. You need to learn these reactions and have them become instinctive.</p>
<p>That said, D drove home from the shore this summer. D: “Didn’t take your route, mom. Ended up going over the bridge into Philly and coming up that way”. Me: “Uh, which route did you take?” D: “76?” A prayer of thanks is shot upwards. I76 is our Schuylkill Expressway, commonly referred to as the “Sure kill”. Thanks that she is calling me safely from home.</p>
<p>Many good answers here, but IMO it all boils down to this - merging and passing!</p>
<p>Learning to drive has very little to do with actually controlling the car. That’s the easy part. The problem in learning to drive is the OTHER drivers on the road. They don’t always do what you expect, or what any reasonable person could anticipate. On a “highway” (I’m thinking interstate) with multiple lanes, there are that many more drivers around you at all times - not only in front and in back of you, but on both sides of you if you’re in the middle lane. One person making a mistake at highway speeds can have devastating consequences for multiple cars - and many of those cars may be driven by innocent drivers.</p>
<p>I don’t mind highways for the most part… I do however hate cities. I went to a wedding Baltimore back in May and I vowed that I’m not driving through that city anymore. I’ve done it a couple times in the past and hated it, and that last time did me in. No more.</p>
<p>Driving is just plain dangerous. I wish our network news people would say every night how many people died on our highways that day. They never do this. Every year it is a huge number–like more than we lost in Vietnam. We should be paying attention.</p>
<p>Your parents freak out because driving on the highway is probably where they’ve had most of their own “near death experiences.”</p>
<p>I remember seeing a graph in National Geographic Magazine (within the last year or two) about causes of death. I recall it showed that (correct me if I’m wrong) close to 1% of Americans (.8, .9%?) will die in car accidents.</p>
<p>Adults who’ve lived 4-5 decades like most parents of teens most certainly know people (friends, relatives, classmates, co-workers, etc.) who’ve died in car accidents. That’s why we freak out.</p>
<p>Absolutley, bethie and atomom.
What parent out there DOESN’T know of a teen killed in a car accident due to inexperience, alcohol use, excessive speed, foolish mistakes, or just bad luck? And we’re also aware that in many cases it could just as easily have been us, or our kids.</p>
<p>I think about driving like you are a secret service agent, you have your focus on the President, but you aware of all your surroundings…</p>
<p>Did you know that 65% of accidents actually occur within 5mi of your home?</p>
<p>Rural highways are perhaps the easiest possible type of driving. </p>
<p>But then there’s the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270 – the highways from hell in my part of the world. Heavy traffic. Difficult merges. Cars constantly changing lanes in front of you. Sudden, inexplicable backups. Accidents every day.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want a kid driving on those roads without several years of experience.</p>
<p>Americans are gentle! Try the German autobahn. Pick up at school, a 45-minute drive each way, mostly on the autobahn. You are going 100 mph (160 kph) in the slow lane, and cars are tailgating you and flashing their lights. Slow down to 80 mph in the snow, lol. Your nerves are shot after doing that for a while. But you have to be 18 to drive there. Actually, I never want my kids to drive there.</p>
<p>Just thought I’d add that, apropos of nothing. I guess for comparison’s sake.</p>
<p>My problem in the autobahn was that the truck drove slower than I wanted to in the slow lane, but the fast lane was full of serious maniacs going 150 mph. The autobahns really needed a third lane, but few had them.</p>
<p>Then the Capital Beltway, I vividly remember being with my best friend during her first year of driving. Mom was in the car, but not at the wheel. She came to a full stop on the merge ramp, which of course made it even harder to merge in the busy traffic. Someone behind us got impatient and passed us and promptly got smashed into. It was awful, they had to get the jaws of life to pry those people out of the car. And meanwhile we still couldn’t get on the Beltway…</p>
<p>What is the autobahn? and also what is the american beltway? Never heard those…</p>
<p>Thats because you’re from Kansas.</p>
<p>The Beltway is the loop around DC. The Autobahn is the German superhighway where there is no speed limit.</p>
<p>no speed limit? so you could go 130 mph?</p>
<p>also is 16 lanes possible? why would you need so many? lots of cars?</p>
<p>Of course 16 lanes is possible. On highway 401 (in Canada), it goes 4 collector lanes, 4 express lanes each way. And I guess you missed the part about the highway being the busiest in the world: with an average daily volume of 500,000 along its busiest stretch, and significantly more on peak days, it needs 16 lanes. Actually, it needs more, but what can we do.</p>
<p>The huge traffic volume is a result of a combination of the highway running through the middle of the Greater Toronto Area, the fact that automakers in southern Ontario use the highway for inventory and parts delivery, and the fact that many American motorists use parts of the highway as a shortcut from Detroit to Buffalo.</p>
<p>Also, apparently I was wrong before. The widest section of the 401 is 18 lanes.</p>