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It’s not easy being a teenager. There’s peer pressure at every turn to do something potentially dangerous or illegal, but not everything kids do is fueled by peer pressure. Sometimes kids do dangerous things out of convenience or habit, and they don’t get the consequences – like texting while driving.
Accidents don’t only happen to distracted drivers.
Even people who are fully focused on the road while driving often need to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting someone who seemingly came from nowhere, or someone who’s rapidly slowing down for no apparent reason. That split-second warning is just enough for them to take the action necessary to avoid or lessen the impact.
The problem is that if you’re already distracted while driving, you forfeit that split-second opportunity to make the necessary correction, making you more likely to be involved in a potentially fatal accident.
The greatest risk on the road is colliding with a motorcycle. Even when you’re actively looking for them, they can still appear beside you without any audible warning. If you’ve got your attention on a digital device, you’re not going to see them until it’s too late. The amount of compensation received in motorcycle accident claim is enough to make you wonder if you’ll ever be approved for auto insurance again.
Acts of negligence are the number one cause of all motorcycle accidents, and texting while driving is a careless and reckless choice. Your kids need to understand that their reckless choices could ruin you financially.
One accident can destroy your life financially.
If there’s one language most kids speak, it’s the language of money. Most kids learn early on that there are monetary consequences to their behavior, whether they’ve had their allowance suspended or had to get a job to pay their parents back for long distance phone calls, gaming, or ordering on-demand movies from HBO. Whatever the infraction, they’ve paid the price and had to work hard to do it.
Paying for damages caused by a car accident, however, can’t be done with a part-time job at McDonald’s over the summer. If your child causes an accident, you probably have enough coverage to handle the damages, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes insurance policies don’t cover enough and the injured party has a right to directly sue the person at fault to recover remaining damages. If your child is under 18, or if they’re legally considered a dependent, you will likely be held responsible.
The source of distraction is a digital lifestyle.
On the surface, it seems like getting your kids to avoid texting while driving is an isolated matter of getting through to them about how dangerous it is, and what the consequences are. It may seem like you can just show them videos of people who have survived horrific crashes, and make them listen to the family members of people who have died. You can do all of that, but the root is deeper.
To understand the underlying problem and employ a solution, you have to consider the reason teenagers feel the need to text and drive. It might appear that they’re just being chatty, but the reality is kids who can’t put their devices down are addicted to technology and don’t know how to function without it.
Kids today are growing up in a world that puts instant communication with the whole world in front of them 24/7 and they won’t break the habit for anything – not even to use the restroom.
Remember the last time you waited forever for a restroom to open up? The person inside was probably texting their friends or scrolling through Facebook. According to a study called “IT in the Toilet,” 75 percent of Americans use their phone in the bathroom, and 19 percent have dropped their phone in the toilet.
If people can’t use the bathroom without being connected to the world, it makes sense that driving would be yet another place where they would continue the habit.
Habits override intelligence.
It’s not enough to educate your kids on the dangers of texting while driving. Plenty of intelligent adults are well educated about the dangers of smoking cigarettes, and they still do it. Why? Because it’s a habit, and habits often override common sense. They’re conditioned to feel the need to respond immediately to the notification sounds, regardless of what they’re doing. If you want to get through to your kids, you have to break their digital addictions.
Help teenagers develop different habits.
While you can’t always guarantee their safety on the road, you can eliminate the risk that comes with being distracted by digital devices. In addition to educating your kids about the dangers of texting while driving, you’ll also need to deploy a strategy to unhook them from their digital addictions.
- Limit screen time. Consider how many devices your kids have access to throughout the day. If they aren’t on their phone, they’re likely on a laptop or an iPad. The earlier you can start limiting the amount of time they spend staring at a digital device, the easier it will be for them to drive without feeling the need to text.
- Set stricter rules. When your kids are just learning how to drive, you can provide them with an emergency flip phone for the car and have them leave their smartphone with you before they even get the keys to the car.
- Set a good example. While 98 percent of adults say they know texting while driving is dangerous, 49 percent do it anyway. Observing the adults in their life texting while driving can make it exceedingly difficult for kids to realize just how dangerous it is. Be the example you want your kids to embody.
Your kids will ultimately make their own choices, but you can influence them to make the right choices, not by scaring them, but by helping them develop different and healthier habits.
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