Parents Play a Key Role In Teen Drinking and Driving Habits

Alarmingly, parents may be unwitting enablers of teen drinking and driving: more than one in three teens (36 percent) say their parents have allowed them to attend parties where it is known that alcohol will be served, and 14 percent say their parents have, in fact, hosted such teen gatherings.

The Liberty Mutual/SADD study suggests that parents have a tremendous opportunity to enhance their role in deterring unsafe driving behaviors among teens. More than one in five teens (22 percent) say their parents have either not spoken with them about driving safety at all or have only talked with them once. Past Liberty Mutual/SADD research strongly indicates that teens who have regular conversations with their parents about driving safety are less likely to drink and drive, less likely to speed, and are more likely to wear their seat belts.

Further, more than half (52 percent) of teens admit they are not responsible for abiding by any formal or informal family driving safety rules. Yet, the opportunity certainly exists: 64 percent of teens who have not entered into any written agreement with their parents about safe driving rules say they would be willing to do so.

“When parents and teens build their safe driving plans together, it prompts effective, face-to-face communication, which we know leads to safer driving behaviors,” says SADD Chairman Stephen Wallace. “Teens want freedom, trust and respect from their parents - exactly what teens themselves tell us a safe driving agreement would provide.”

Indeed, 71 percent of teens say a formal safe driving agreement will increase their parents’ trust in them and more than half (55 percent) believe it would afford them more freedom. Importantly, those who do have formal driving safety rules established with their parents are significantly more likely than teens who have no family driving safety rules to say such an agreement would encourage them to change their driving habits (44 percent vs. 26 percent) and would make it easier for them to resist peer pressure when it comes to making a decision between safe and unsafe driving behaviors (58 percent vs. 42 percent).

Liberty Mutual and SADD offer a customizable Family Ground Rules safe driving agreement at www.libertymutualteendriving.com that provides a framework for parents and teens to set and agree to specific rules around key safe driving issues such as speeding, the number of passengers in the car, cell phone usage, texting while driving, and curfews. Upon acceptance, these ground rules - with mutually agreed upon rewards and consequences - can be printed and posted on the refrigerator so parents and teens can refer back to them throughout the year.

This entry was posted on 22. June 2010 at 07:09 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.