Despite statistics showing that 33 percent of all teen deaths come in car crashes, many parents are letting their kids violate safe practices by texting and driving at night, according to a new survey.
Worse, they know their kids aren’t prepared, with 64 percent of parents interviewed by carinsurance.com describing the driving of the children as frightening.
“Key findings show the majority of surveyed parents (59 percent) have allowed their kids to break at least one graduated driver’s license rule, though many (64 percent) rate their teen driver’s performance as fairly scary,” said a release from the company that promotes the GDL process of teaching rookies how to drive.
It also looked at road safety for younger drivers and ranked states in safety. The top five safest states for teen drivers are Massachusetts, Maryland, Alaska, Virginia and California. The worst was Montana.
The study asked parents if they overlooked bad driving practices of their teens. Here’s what they found:
Despite research showing that GDL laws are effective at keeping teens safe, not all parents are enforcing these measures when their kids get behind the wheel. The following percentages of parents surveyed have allowed their teens to break these GDL provisions (respondents selected all that applied):
— Driving friends: 33%
— Driving at night: 30%
— Using cellphone: 29%
— Driving curfew: 27%
— Driving unsupervised (if required by state): 19%
— None: 41%
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
