Preventing Teen Car Accidents in Florida

As a Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney who helps victims of serious car accidents, Joseph Lipsky wants to make sure parents of teenage drivers know that it is Teen Driver Safety Week. One of the most important themes of Teen Driver Safety Week is that parents must be more involved in their teenage driver’s training and behavior.

The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), which speaks on behalf of various state traffic safety organizations, believes more involved parenting is critical to help keep teenage drivers safe. Of particular importance is parents using the leverage graduated driver licensing process. The leverage graduated driver program is a step by step process for teenage drivers to slowly move from less hazardous to more dangerous driving scenarios, such as night driving or driving in poor weather.

The benefits of a graduated driver license program are demonstrated in a twenty to forty percent drop in those teen’s accidents. When parents implement specific driving rules, such as only permitting day time driving for the first 6 months and to prevent distracted driving accidents-a strict prohibition against cell phone usage, the resulting reduction of teenage accidents drop substantially.
While it may be anecdotal, the truth is that teenage male drivers show a greater propensity, for speeding, particularly if their friends are with them. Clearly, parents of new male drivers need to take an active role in initially protecting them from such dangerous situations.
Some of the Governors Highway Safety Association recommendations include:

– Teach good driving skills, including enrolling your driver in driving school; and
– Reminding your teenage driver that driving is a privilege, not a right, which is based upon the teenager agreeing to strict rules about how and when they may drive.

As a parent of teenagers, we strongly agree with these and other common sense recommendations which will not only reduce the likelihood of a teenager being serious injured in a car accident, but will also protect the other drivers on the road. Our best advice is to make sure that a family’s excitement for a new driver, does not outweigh the need to practice safe driving behavior