Monthly Archives: June 2009

Driver Education: Commentary Driving

June 25, 2009

For most parents who are teaching their teens to drive, using commentary driving seems to make perfect sense. But like many other simple tasks, commentary driving is not always easy to do well, and if done improperly, can be frustrating for both the parent and teen.

Since commentary driving involves speaking out loud while driving, parents should model it for teens well before they allow the teen behind the wheel of the vehicle. Teens are likely to feel self-conscious about the process (and parents may, too), so several lessons just on the method itself will be helpful. Parents should emphasize the fundamentals; for example, taking note of the speed limit every time they enter a new street and watching for pedestrians in every crosswalk.

Just as they would with any other driving lesson, parents should begin practicing commentary driving in a relatively simple driving environment and progress to more complex situations, such as driving on the expressway. Each lesson in a new driving environment should be preceded by a demonstration by the parent of commentary driving in that environment; this allows teens to absorb some of the new hazards they will encounter from the safety of the passenger seat.

One purpose of commentary driving is to focus the driver’s attention on her or his thoughts, which in turn helps to maintain a high level of alertness. This is particularly helpful with teens, who may be struggling to overcome the excitement of finally getting to drive enough to focus on the process. It’s also helpful to parents, who otherwise might experience great anxiety as they wonder whether or not their teen has noticed hazards ahead, such as other drivers drifting out of their lanes or following too closely or cars parked on the side of the street.

While commentary driving involves talking while driving, the content of the discussion should be specific and targeted to the driving environment. The driver maintains a running list of observations and actions. An example of commentary driving is: “Approaching intersection….green light….car in oncoming lane waiting to turn left….checking mirrors….light still green….checking intersection….crossing intersection….”. Comments that are general, i.e., “checking ahead,” are not helpful because they don’t increase the awareness level of the driver. The person commenting should say what they see and how they plan to handle what they see.

Parents should resist the temptation to interject into teens’ comments unless absolutely necessary. Questions such as, “What would it mean if that traffic light was yellow?” and “How many seconds should your following distance be if it starts raining right now?” distract teens from what’s in front of them and teach them to rely on someone else’s observations instead of making their own. Parents should make note of any discussion points on a log and cover them at the end of the lesson when the vehicle is parked.

If teens get distracted and stop commenting, parents should encourage them to return to the process with general comments like, “Keep going; tell me everything you’re seeing and what you’re going to do.” When teens repeatedly stop commenting, they may be tired or overwhelmed, signaling that the lesson should end. After the lesson, parents can point out that when drivers stop commenting, their level of alertness goes down.

Parents can also ask questions that help teens understand how commentary driving works after the lesson is over. For example, ask, “Could you practice commentary driving while talking on your cell phone? How do you think talking on a cell phone affects a person’s driving?”

Commentary driving can be an effective driver education tool if used properly; parents who invest time and energy in the process help their teens to be better, safer drivers.

Driver Education: How Drugs Affect Driving – Inhalants

June 17, 2009

Most parents worry that their teens will get involved in illegal drugs, but some parents are unaware of one of the main determinants of whether teens will experiment with drugs – availability. Because they are legal, easily accessible household products, inhalants are one of the most commonly abused drug categories. According to the 2007 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study, 4.6 million teens have tried inhalants. After alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana, inhalants are the most frequently-used drug by teens. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, inhalants are one of the first substances abused by children. Though addiction is rare, inhalants can act as a gateway drug when they are replaced with other accessible substances as children age and chase the next high.

Inhalants include solvents, such as paint thinner, gasoline, and glue; gases, such as butane, propane, and nitrous oxide; and aerosol propellants. Experimentation could occur with any household product containing chemicals – spray paint, cleaning products, felt-tip marker fluid, vegetable oil spray, correction fluid. Inhalants are “sniffed” from an open container or “huffed” from a rag soaked in the substance and held to the face. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, most inhalants cause a quick high similar to alcohol intoxication. The intoxication from inhalants typically only lasts a few minutes, so users often inhale repeatedly over a period of several hours, increasing the risk of adverse effects.

Effects of inhalants include:

stimulation
loss of inhibition
slurred speech
loss of motor coordination
headache
nausea or vomiting
wheezing
loss of sensation
loss of consciousness
muscle cramps and weakness
memory impairment
weight loss
depression
damage to the cardiovascular and nervous systems
sudden death, even with first-time use

Because abuse of inhalants often occurs at a friend’s house or in out-of-the-way places such as in empty parking lots and on dead-end streets, and because driving is viewed as a fun activity by teens, the danger of inhalants can be compounded when teens use inhalants and drive. The intoxication caused by inhalants can cause the same problems as driving under the influence of alcohol – impaired judgment and decision-making, risky driving behavior, and poor motor coordination.

Ensuring that teens don’t experiment with inhalants requires a high degree of vigilance on the part of the parent. Inhalants are cheap, legal and easy to obtain, often from the teen’s own home. Teens are often not aware of the risk of using inhalants, reasoning that they are harmless household products and that they are only going to be used occasionally. In fact, the 2007 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study showed that from 2001 to 2005, the number of teens who perceived inhalant use as risky decreased significantly.

Parents shouldn’t assume that if they don’t mention inhalants, it won’t occur to teens to use them. At any given time, a teen can be presented with the idea by a friend. In fact, since inhalants are often the first drug used by children, they should be one of the first drug categories parents discuss. Make sure teens know that even common household goods, such as cleaning products, can be harmful – show them the warnings on the labels about using them in well-ventilated areas, and ask them to explain how they think intentionally inhaling the fumes could harm someone. Talk about the risk of sudden death from sniffing or huffing, and ask teens to talk about how they would feel if they were with a friend who died from inhalant abuse. Opportunities for reinforcing the risks of inhalant abuse are everywhere – in driver training courses, in health education classes, in newspaper articles, and on television shows.

Restricting the availability of popular substances is also important. Clean out the garage and properly dispose of leftover chemical products. Those that must be kept should be locked in a cabinet or shed. Parents may wish to help teens avoid temptation by limiting or banning aerosol spray products such as deodorants, hairspray, fabric protector, and whipped cream. Keep a close watch on teens’ bedrooms and recreational areas for empty containers or smelly rags, especially in odd places, like under a bed or chair or in the back of a closet. Parents who suspect inhalant abuse must take action immediately.

How Teens Can Drive Safely on the Expressway

June 9, 2009

A complete driver-training program includes lessons on all types of streets and highways, both night and day, in a variety of weather and traffic conditions. But many teens get the majority, if not all, of their driver training on familiar roads close to home. Some young drivers do not make their first expressway trip until after they are licensed and driving on their own. This is a high-risk method for teens to gain driving experience, because:

Young drivers who don’t have freeway experience have trouble controlling vehicles traveling at high speeds
Teens have minimal experience in dealing with emergency driving situations, particularly at high speeds
When expressways are unfamiliar to drivers, they spend more time searching the driving scene for directional signs and landmarks
Teens often aren’t aware of the level of risk on interstates, so they may continue other risky driving behaviors, such as non-use of seat belts and allowing distractions such as loud music and noisy passengers
Though expressways have a low incidence of collisions, the crashes that do occur have high injury severity rates because the higher speeds exponentially increase the amount of force involved in the crash

Commentary driving is an excellent way to train teens to drive safely on the expressway. With commentary driving, teens maintain a running dialogue of their progress – what they notice as they observe the roadway and what actions they will take: “The car in front of me is slowing down, so I’m slowing down and checking my following distance. My exit is coming up in one mile, so I’m putting on my turn signal, checking my mirrors and blind spot, and moving into the exit lane. The exit ramp has a posted speed limit of 45 mph, so I’m slowing to that speed. It’s starting to rain, so I’m increasing my following distance.”

Commentary driving forces the driver to use critical thinking skills to make driving decisions. The fact that the driver’s observations are verbalized is comforting to the person (typically a parent) teaching the teen to drive, because it allows the instructor to follow the teen’s thought process and quickly make corrections without lecturing, which teens tend to tune out anyway.

Teens often feel awkward about commentary driving, so it is helpful to model it for them prior to beginning driving lessons. This also allows parents to perfect the process and to see the roadway with new eyes, thus relating better to the beginning driver.

From a practical standpoint, it is obviously important for teens to work up to practicing driving on the expressway. The first several lessons should occur during non-peak hours on dry roads during the daytime. Introduce one variable – nighttime hours, rainy weather, rush-hour traffic – at a time, and ensure the teen is completely comfortable with each before progressing to the next.

The following training tips will help teens be safer drivers on the freeway:

Make sure the teen understands that though traffic on the expressway can seem predictable because everyone is moving in the same direction at approximately the same speed, surprises can occur and drivers must be ready to deal with them at all times.
Use commentary driving to make sure teens know how to identify interstate interchanges, signs, lane markings, and speed limits.
Help teens learn how to enter and exit expressways properly: searching the road ahead, signaling, evaluating other drivers’ speed, calculating the amount of available space, adjusting speed to the flow of traffic, identifying exits early, and following exit ramp speed limits. Practice entering and exiting the freeway at different points to broaden the young driver’s experience.
Include information in the lesson plan on how high speeds affect following distance, stopping distance, and the physics of motor vehicle crashes. To avoid overloading the young driver, provide these lessons off the road, or have teens take a driver safety course and report what they learned.
- Help teens understand how the steering needs of vehicles change at high speeds; excessive steering can cause drivers to lose control on the expressway.
- Reinforce that driving must be taken seriously; many traffic games occur on freeways. Make sure teen drivers maintain a steady lane position in the right lane, except when passing, and refrain from being competitive with other drivers.
- Talk about the dangers of the expressway, such as crosswinds when traveling on bridges or through mountain passes, other drivers tailgating them, and sharing the road with large trucks, and how to handle each one.

Driver Education: Traffic Safety for New High School Graduates

June 5, 2009

Summer is here and school is out. Many young drivers will be spending more time on the road going to the beach or pool, working at summer jobs, and having fun with friends. This is an especially exciting time for teens who are 2009 high school graduates. Recent grads are filled with elation, a sense of freedom, and hopes and dreams for the future. But euphoria and increased independence can cause problems when they lead relatively inexperienced drivers to take chances behind the wheel. And summertime is a dangerous time for drivers in general; traffic deaths for all drivers increase during the warm-weather months, peaking in July.

Three deadly holidays take place during the summer – Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, in a 2004 analysis of six holiday periods, the average number of traffic deaths during holiday periods was 156 per day, compared to 117 per day on non-holidays. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 20 of the 25 deadliest days on US roads over a five-year time frame fell during the period from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day.

Teen motor vehicle fatalities are also highest in the summer, partly because it’s an unsafe time for all drivers, but also due to risk factors specific to young drivers. Like other drivers, teens spend more time on the road during the summer (averaging 44% more hours driving each week, according to the NHTSA) and are more likely to drive at night. But they lack the experience of older drivers in dealing with heavy traffic and low-visibility conditions. Like other drivers, teens behind the wheel in the summer are often accompanied by multiple passengers. But teens are often much more distracted by their passengers than older drivers, and they are unlikely to assert themselves even when they are aware that they need to concentrate on driving.

Parents who want their teens to survive the summer must stay involved in their teens’ driving activities. Without close supervision, the vast majority of teens lack the emotional maturity to stay safe behind the wheel – or as passengers of other teen drivers.

-Though most parents will broaden driving privileges for summer, avoid giving teens too many privileges at once. Extend privileges one at a time and make sure teens prove they can handle the increased responsibility before adding more.

-Conduct supplementary driver training lessons. For example, many teens have limited experience with night driving during the school year; a few lessons will help them learn good nighttime driving habits from the beginning. A teen driving checklist helps parents provide valuable feedback on the driving lesson.

-A driver training course will help teens review fundamental driving concepts during a time when they are most at risk. A quick safe-driving refresher could help an inexperienced young driver make the right choice in an emergency. Parents whose teens receive even one traffic ticket must address the issue immediately; tickets mean teens are probably engaging in more risky driving behaviors than parents realize.

-Parents should check up on their teens’ seat belt use as often as possible. In 2006, the NHTSA reported that 58% of 16- to 20-year olds who were involved in fatal motor vehicle collisions were not wearing seat belts. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that teen seat belt use increases over time when strict parental limits are set.

-A heightened level of awareness about their teens’ access to alcohol, particularly on holidays, is critical for concerned parents. Teens may even have access to alcohol via their friends’ parents; ensure that teens understand that underage drinking is never acceptable, no matter what any other parent says or does, even for a special occasion. Create a codeword so your teen can ask to be picked up without risking the ridicule of friends.