Here is a thought…perhaps he would benefit from a defensive driving course. Look around and see if you can find one. They are offered around here.
Also, don’t know what your weather conditions are like where you live…but if he will be driving in snow and has no experience doing so…someone needs to take him to a parking lot without poles, and let him skid around on I e or snow…and learn that skill too.
He does need to practice driving… but he doesn’t need to do so alone.
S1 is 27 and still doesn’t drive. Has always lived in major metro areas and takes public transit. He lives in SV and rides his bike on designated paths. Has no problem with the extra time public transit takes. He also Lyfts or rideshares with friends. My feeling is that driving is one of those Adulting things that one needs to do so that one can be helpful in an emergency, but it’s his life.
S2 got his license just before his 19th birthday. No car at college. We spent a lot of time letting him drive us around as he got more practice and skill while he was home on college breaks. He had a fender bender this time last year, three months short of his 25th birthday. He drives one of our cards for work (sore subject). I’ve noticed a few scrapes, but my DH has also put some on. I’ve noticed that with our cars, the bumpers and doors are so soft that there is not always noise when one scrapes against a hard surface.
He is not a smooth driver, and the idea of a defensive driving class mentioned above has some appeal. He also wants to learn to drive a stick shift; maybe that would be a way to help him buy into improving his skills. (He is heading overseas soon, and the ability to drive a stick shift if needed is useful.). Hanukkah present?
Somehow my son turned out to be a really good driver. As a junior in HS, he inherited his GF’s car. A few fender benders, then considered totaled. Last year of college, he inherited my car. He still has it, a 2004 Accord. I think driving in SV and Boston taught him a lot.
In FL, we don’t have parallel parking. We put boxes outside, and he practiced parking between those.
He needs practice. I was the driving instructor in our family because I don’t get angry or flustered. If your DH gets angry and tense when DS isn’t driving perfectly, try to avoid having him as the instructor.
But again, your son needs practice. Hire an instructor if you and your DH don’t have the time or temperament.
Also, avoid beige Honda Civics. They are completely invisible from behind. I think we went through 4 bumpers on ours, none of which was the (teen) driver’s fault.
I think we can all agree that teenagers have a higher incidence of accidents. Doh!
But I reject outright the premise that they are “common”. They are anything but “common”. Indeed, the statistics show that the accident rate for teens is ~45 out of a 1,000. What that clearly means is that 955 out of a 1,000 teen drivers don’t have accidents.
In the case of the OP, I’d vote for 1, 2, & 5 as contributory factors. (GF gets ‘credit’ for last two.)
Per CDC:
"Make sure your young driver is aware of the leading causes of teen crashes:
Driver inexperience
Driving with teen passengers
Nighttime driving
Not using seat belts
Distracted driving
Drowsy driving
Reckless driving
Impaired driving"
Are little scratches like the OP mentions considered “accidents” or “crashes”? I highly doubt it. They don’t get reported in that 45 out of 1,000 number.
S got his license a few months before he turned 17. He rear ended another car stopped at a light, sometime in early winter. Police were called and a report filed. He was pretty shaken up, but a good lesson, IMO, of the power of a car. While that car was getting a new front bumper, he was driving my car and got rear ended by a lady frantic to get home as her kid was threatening suicide! It was a very minor dent and I just took the money from the other driver’s insurance co (about $1000) and never got it fixed. Then a few weeks later, after the first car was fixed, he was parking it in our driveway and tapped a frozen solid snowbank which cracked the brand new front bumper. H just duct taped it.
Somehow he made it through 4 years of college without any sort of accident or even minor scratch or ding.
Since he bought his new car about 1 1/2 years ago (he’s 24 now) he was reared ended on the Mass Pike (about $5k in damages which the other driver’s insurance paid,) and he was side swiped by an Uber driver last summer. That was several thousands in repairs too.
Common is a relative word. I personally knew six young people (all but one was male, and two were not the drivers) who were killed in vehicle accidents when I was college age or younger. I had previously dated two of them. Possibly that skews my thinking as to what is considered “common.”
Since some posters don’t seem to think that accidents are all that common, I looked up the statistics by state to see if I just lived in a particularly dangerous state. Yep, the fatality rates for my home state are about four times higher than the safest state to drive in (Massachusetts). The rates were 1/5,600 chance of dying in a vehicle accident, 1/2,500 chance of being involved in a fatal crash). I would guess that the non-fatal accident rates were much higher - and as always, the majority would have involved young people. Two of the other three states I’ve lived in are also in the top 15 states for traffic fatalities. That also probably influences my perception of what is considered common.
I don’t know why the accident rate is so high in my home state - maybe the fact that a kid can start driving at 15 and a half (when I was young - the licensed driver for a permittee could be your 16 year old friend)? The amount of rural roads? Idk.
When I lived in another “high accident rate” state, there was a horrible accident where a 15 year old (driving legally) was driving herself, and four of her siblings and neighbors to school one icy morning. She slid off the road into a pond and all five drowned. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2007/feb/28/accident-kills-five-children/ I think that some parents (and state lawmakers) overestimate the abilities of their children. The other daughter mentioned in the article was a toddler who was killed when she wandered out in the road. Ironically, I think the culture of self-sufficiency in that state was a factor in that family’s tragedy.
We didn’t let our oldest get her license until she was 18. There are also much stricter requirements for licensing in our current state.
According to this, https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_content_en/dmv/teenweb/more_btn6/traffic/traffic#, the fatal/injury rate ranges from 61.4 per 1000 for 16-year olds to 37.8 per 1000 for 19 year olds. So I’m willing to bet, that 45 number excludes non-injury crashes.
I bet it does too. I didn’t report 2 out of 3 of my youthful fender benders that had minor damage and no injuries.
Maybe I shouldn’t have used the words “fender benders”? In both cases, they were just scratches to the car - one was just a scratch to the clear coat of the car and the second, he left about a two inch long scratch on the rear of the car. Regardless, we will be in the car with him once he gets his driving privileges restored. He is a good kid - no drugs or drinking, obeys the laws, etc. My guess is that he had the radio on too loud, the girlfriend was a major distraction, and combined with his inexperience led to these two incidents.
Heck, a car could get those scratches in a parking lot while standing still. He might not remember it because he wasn’t in the car when it happened. If he fessed up to it, kudos to him for being honest because there could have been a lot of excuses to explain it away.
My 17 year old got her license in May and her car (translation: my old minivan) in August.
She’s been in one fender bender. She was PARKED on a side street near school on a rainy morning, sitting in the car, finishing her coffee. She had the first parking spot on the street. A car tried to turn into that street, hit an oncoming car, and pushed it into my daughter’s car.
We didn’t file an insurance claim; the car is 11 years old and already has a few dents. (I’ve been driving since 1975, and those 2 dents are the only ones I’ve ever put on a car. Both times, I was driving while upset on my way from the oncologist.)
But this one’s not on her. She was parked legally and someone else crashed into her parked car.
My 19 year old son has a clean record, though one of his friends had already totaled 2 or 3 cars by high school graduation.
Accidents happen. The main thing with driving is making sure they get enough hours behind the wheel. It’s too late for those who already have their license but I started training the kids when they were 13 or 14 driving in an empty parking lot (For those w licenses I’d recommend riding with them as much as possible to assess their skill). We logged a bunch of hours doing that so when the oldest for ready for temps at 15 he was already familiar with driving. We then went onto slower roads without much traffic and added on highways, in town driving, rain and night as we went. By the time he was ready for his license, I felt pretty good about his skill. He handled a couple close calls well while I was in the car.With that said, I still worry like crazy because he’s still young and accidents happen. Now, I periodically ride with him just to see how he’s doing. He is 17 and so far, knock on wood, is a good driver.
Yes it does. So what? The point remains: teen accidents are NOT common (at least in my use of the word).