Tips for Teaching Your Kids How to Drive
Teaching your kids how to drive is an important milestone in both of your lives. For you, it means that your child is almost 16 and it means freedom and independence for them!
Driving is an extremely useful skill to know, but you must teach your kids how to drive properly. Many drivers are unsafe and distracted, which poses a big hazard to your kids.
Your first step in the world of traffic law is emphasizing safety and teaching your kids a few core behaviors that will reliably get them from point A to point B.
Obey Traffic Laws at All Times!
Like what most driving school in Anaheim, CA, the first thing you should teach your kids seems fairly obvious, but sometimes the message isn’t thoroughly understood.
Your kids need to remember to obey all traffic laws at all times! There are two important reasons for this.
First, it will keep them safe. Traffic laws don’t exist just to impose unnecessary rules on drivers. Instead, they are there to make sure all cars on the road follow a similar set of guidelines to make things more predictable.
Predictability is critical on the road. Imagine a world where there weren’t any fixed driving laws and drivers could do whatever they wanted. Would you ever feel safe?
The answer is no, and if you did then you likely wouldn’t feel that way for long. Laws can feel frustrating to obey, but many times they exist to keep us safe.
The other benefit of following all traffic laws is that it will prevent them from racking up tickets. Not only are tickets costly, but it can quickly lead to them losing their permit/license and raising insurance premiums.
The best thing you can do for your child is to enroll them in online traffic school and teach them to obey traffic laws.
Driving Faster is Pointless
Another important principle to teach your kids is that driving faster and speeding is pointless!
In theory, the thought process behind driving faster is that you will reach your destination faster. Sometimes this is the case, but often only by a few seconds or minutes.
More realistically, you won’t get to where you need to be any faster.
Have you ever seen a driver that loves to repeatedly switch lanes to whichever one is faster, only to roll up right next to them at a red light? That’s why speeding is downright foolish!
Cars are limited by how quickly they can get somewhere due to traffic lights. You can spend all the time you want switching lanes, but it won’t do you any good. Spending extra effort to try to get somewhere faster will just leave you frustrated.
Don’t forget the obvious fact that speeding is illegal. One of the easiest ways for a younger driver to get a ticket is by speeding. There’s no benefit to driving fast and it will bring your child far more harm than good.
Road User Safety
Your child must learn the benefits of obeying laws as it keeps all road users safe. If the child disregards the traffic laws, the kid will most likely be detained by police officers on the count of being an immediate threat to public safety.
The highest priority of any road user is safety. If you cause an accident through negligence, carelessness, or ignorance, you will be charged with immediate threat suspension. An attorney may help you to revoke the immediate threat in court. However, if your case (involving the suspension) has not been decided, you will have to postpone your driving plans for a while.
It is evident that revoking the immediate threat suspension is quite tedious and will cost you money. Therefore, you have to insist on the traffic rules. Let the kids master by heart and mind their importance.
Cell Phones Can Wait
One final tip that is particularly important today is that cell phones can wait!
As tempting as it may be for your kid to check their phone for a new notification, doing so will take their eyes off of the road and place them in danger.
Anytime anyone is driving, their eyes should be completely glued to the road. There is nothing more important than ensuring the road in front of them is safe.
Today cell phones are incredibly prevalent. Add in the different number of apps, text messages, and social media platforms your child may use and you can see just how many things might prompt them to check their phone.
Phones are downright addictive for many kids, thanks to the dopamine rush that you get from receiving a notification. Chances are, the notification they get is probably just a “like” on a post or comment or a simple text from a friend.
Put into context, neither one of these notifications helps your kid drive, nor are they important period. If your child is actively distracting themselves from driving, they are endangering themselves and others.
Closing Thoughts
Teaching your kids how to drive properly and safely is incredibly important, but it isn’t always easy. Several factors can actively distract your children, leading to them taking their eyes off of the road.
Smartphone usage is one of today’s biggest problems, so consider instructing your kids to put their phone in the back seat, or on a dashboard mount if used for navigation purposes.
Teach them that speeding is not only illegal but completely pointless because it won’t get them anywhere faster.
This aligns with the other important tip of remembering to obey traffic laws at all times. Traffic laws are vital to ensuring their safety and others, but it will also help them avoid costly tickets.
It can be easy to overlook information to teach your kids when driving, but those are three core principles that shouldn’t be forgotten!
