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Draconian? Or Loving Parent?
Today (June 3), USA TODAY ran a full, center-page spread, titled:
'Keeping Teen Drivers Safe Begins at Home', and it was generally very good indeed. But on the front cover of Section B of the newspaper was a brief article: 'Black Boxes For Cars [are] Slow to Catch On.' Apparently, teens around the USA are protetsting that for parents to fit -- quite literally -- 'black boxes' in the car that their son or daughter will use during the early stages of learning to drive is "an invasion of privacy". It goes on to say: [quote] Even the nation's top highway safety official couldn't persuade his wife and son to accept the device. .. "We had this debate in my own household," Jeffrey Runge, who heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said this week at a USA TODAY roundtable discussion on the risks of teenage driving. .. When Runge brought home the device to put in the car their teenage son drives, his wife resisted. "She said, 'Well that really doesn't demonstrate mush trust.' I didn't win the argument." [END OF QUOTE] [Back to Eddie's comments!] The first thing to do, here, is acknowledge that the media frequently "quote" people out of context, so the comments that follow are specifically not aimed at Dr. Runge, who has done a lot of good things for road safety in America -- including being honest and outspoken on subjects that undoubtedly caused him subsequent political grief! [SUVs, hint hint! - LOL] None-the-less, the subject here is that of maximizing safety for our own sons and daughters. I personally believe that the American (but still not widespread) idea of having a written contract between parents and offspring, about what can and cannot happen during the 'learning to drive' phase, is a good idea. But I very strongly believe that no matter how much a teen thinks he or she knows about driving or safety (and we ALL thought we knew it all, at that age, did we not?!!!) the over-riding factor MUST remain safety. Maybe this is the ex police officer in me re-emerging, but if I -- with considerable knowledge of safety for young drivers -- decided it was right for a monitoring device to be fitted to my own teen's car, then it would be fitted.... period! Having debates and reaching joint decisions may be a wonderful thing in any family, but for me it would stop being a debating society the moment safety becomes a key issue. And if I was unable to explain to my own son or daughter that their safety -- and, for that matter, their mother's peace of mind, each and every day the kid went out driving -- both come a huge distance ahead of bull**** notions of "invasion of privacy" then shame on me. If I can't tell my own child that I love them so much I'm going to make darned sure in each and every way possible that they get through one of the most dangerous phases of their life intact, then I'm not much of a mentor or an example. Would a teen have hissy fits over this? Yep... Not much doubt on that one! But backing down from something that goes way beyond a duty to protect one's own children??? Not before a certain place freezes over and glaciates! Frankly, I would be incredulous if any father I knew backed down on an issue such as this because their teen thought it was an invasion of privacy! Killing OTHER, innocent people in road crashes has to be the biggest invasion of privacy imaginable. ALL teens -- IMHO -- need to be focussed on the fact that learning to drive is NOT just about them -- the me, me, me culture -- it is at least as much about THE OTHER PERSON. If any teens happen to read this particular message and object to what I've written, please DO say so. I may have a parental right to say how my own son or daughter would have to act under these circumstances but of course I have no right whatsoever to dictate what happens in other families. So if anyone disagrees, tell me! LOL Regards to all... no matter what age group! {:-) Eddie www.driveandstayalive.com (also at the Yahoo! 'teendrivers' Group) |
#2
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In article . com,
"Eddie" wrote: If any teens happen to read this particular message and object to what I've written, please DO say so. I may have a parental right to say how my own son or daughter would have to act under these circumstances but of course I have no right whatsoever to dictate what happens in other families. So if anyone disagrees, tell me! LOL I'd have to think hard about what would be GAINED by the black box. I suppose you could look at it and stop letting the kid use the car under some circumstances. I'd agree that if I thought it was a serious safety issue, I'd do what I thought was right. Since we don't "owe" our children a car to drive, it would be easy to put it in those terms: the conditions for using our car include that you will allow the Black Box to be installed. However, there is also an issue of trust. Unless you have some reason to believe that your child will behave considerably differently when you are NOT in the car, I think it makes more sense to just have them drive you places periodically, to make sure they are still driving the way you taught them to in the first place. -- Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care |
#3
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In article ,
dragonlady says... However, there is also an issue of trust. Unless you have some reason to believe that your child will behave considerably differently when you are NOT in the car, I think it makes more sense to just have them drive you places periodically, to make sure they are still driving the way you taught them to in the first place. Do you generally go by the assumption that teens act the same way when their parents are present as when they aren't? That one doesn't work IME. Banty |
#4
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On 2005-06-05, Banty wrote:
In article , dragonlady says... However, there is also an issue of trust. Unless you have some reason to believe that your child will behave considerably differently when you are NOT in the car, I think it makes more sense to just have them drive you places periodically, to make sure they are still driving the way you taught them to in the first place. Do you generally go by the assumption that teens act the same way when their parents are present as when they aren't? That one doesn't work IME. One can avoid the whole "trust" issue by insisting that *all* the family cars be equipped with black boxes, so that there is evidence in the case of a crash that it is not your fault. If the parents are unwilling to have black boxes in their cars, then they should not insist on them for their children. (Same issue with bike helmets---either they are valuable protective gear and all bike riders in the family should wear them, or they are unnecessary and children should not be forced to wear them when their parents don't. Personally, I go with the "valuable protective gear" option.) We plan to avoid the teen-driving problem simply by not having any cars in the family. The problem then is "reduced" to making sure that he only accepts rides from good drivers. This is already a problem since one of the family friends is a poor driver (due to neural disabilities), and we have not figured out a polite way to refuse to let her drive. Usually we manage to walk or bicycle with the boys, rather than have her drive, but this has sometimes proved difficult to arrange. ------------------------------------------------------------ Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics (Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB) life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels) Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed) Affiliations for identification only. |
#5
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On Sat, 4 Jun 2005 21:52:54 EDT, Banty
wrote: In article , dragonlady says... However, there is also an issue of trust. Unless you have some reason to believe that your child will behave considerably differently when you are NOT in the car, I think it makes more sense to just have them drive you places periodically, to make sure they are still driving the way you taught them to in the first place. I was thinking something similar. Do you generally go by the assumption that teens act the same way when their parents are present as when they aren't? That one doesn't work IME. Well, I don't know if "assumption" is the right word, but I usually treat them as if they behave similarly when we aren't here, and that hasn't backfired on me. The example was of driving a car unsupervised, which isn't possible in this jurisdiction until almost age 17, so I'm speaking of older teenagers. It probably also helps our comfort level that our house has always been a gathering place for the crowd, so we know most of the people they hang out with in town. Both of them will be spending the summer sailing off the coast of a foreign country, then heading off to universities in distant provinces in the summer, so it's a good thing that they have experience making good decisions when we're not around. Louise |
#6
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In article ,
dragonlady wrote: However, there is also an issue of trust. Unless you have some reason to believe that your child will behave considerably differently when you are NOT in the car, I think it makes more sense to just have them drive you places periodically, to make sure they are still driving the way you taught them to in the first place. I lost someone close to me in a car accident just days after his 18th birthday. He was driving in a way he would never have driven with his parents in the car. I don't know if a black box would have saved his life or not -- he would have had to have driven in this way (or other dangerous ways) prior to the accident and survived first, for his parents to have found out and prevented him from driving that night. But I do know that lots of teens behave differently when out of their parents' sight. --Robyn .. |
#7
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#8
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In article ,
Banty wrote: In article , dragonlady says... However, there is also an issue of trust. Unless you have some reason to believe that your child will behave considerably differently when you are NOT in the car, I think it makes more sense to just have them drive you places periodically, to make sure they are still driving the way you taught them to in the first place. Do you generally go by the assumption that teens act the same way when their parents are present as when they aren't? That one doesn't work IME. Banty No -- I know they'll behave differently when I'm not with them. However, in watching my own kids, it's been my experience that those that tend to adopt unsafe driving practices have a hard time NOT doing those things when I'm in the car -- for example, my son follows too close, and one daughter has kind of a lead foot. I can address those issues. (I have another advantage in that they periodically give each other rides places, and I certainly hear from their siblings if they're doing something wrong!) However, if they are doing wildly unsafe things -- extreme speeding, for example, or driving while under the influence -- on an occassional basis, then riding with them once in a while won't catch that. I guess I'm uncomfortable with the inherent lack of trust implied with the black box, and I'd need to be convinced that it actually DOES make a difference before I'd put one in my car. -- Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care |
#9
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In article ,
dragonlady wrote: However, if they are doing wildly unsafe things -- extreme speeding, for example, or driving while under the influence -- on an occassional basis, then riding with them once in a while won't catch that. Obviously, the ideal is to instill in one's kids the good judgement not to do these things, over the years of parenting leading up to and including the teen years. But, despite a parent's best efforts, many kids do not develop reliably good judgement by 16 or 17 or 18. So, if a parent knows that a teen's judgement is spotty, what can they do? You obviously can't supervise a "child" of that age all the time. And I'm not saying that a black box is the solution here, because I agree that saying "I don't trust you so I'm going to track your behavior" is not really a productive way to help a child develop trustable judgement (it is more likely a challenge to get around the surveilance). But, I don't know what is. --Robyn .. |
#10
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In article ,
Louise wrote: Somewhat apropos, I've been wondering lately whether and how attention-deficit issues and driving schools fit together. Do the people who diagnose ADD and advise teens and parents on how to handle school with ADD also give advice about how an easily distractable young person can learn to drive safely? On a related note, how do you deal with the fact that a teen with ADHD may have impulsivity issues, making them perhaps more likely to engage in occasional instances of extremely unsafe driving behaviors? --Robyn, without any answers, just questions .. |
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