AOL Autos uncovered a new trend being brought up by Susan Kessler, clearly, an overly protective mom. Kessler’s plan for wild, teen drivers: a magnetic sticker that attaches to the rear of the vehicle with “Caution Newly Licensed,” scrawled upon it.
Uhm, er. Am I the only one seeing the holes in this lame, passive idea?
Apparently so, as Kessler is making her rounds on daytime talk shows with plenty of support. According to AOL Autos, Kessler and the mommy brigade has been able to dole out signs to more than 15,000 people over the course of four years.
Source: AutoSpiesTheoretically, the magnetic signage would provide a “protective bubble,” around the newbie driver. In reality, although I think it is likely that surrounding drivers would observe the caution sign, it would not make any difference if a teen driver were simply a bad driver. Is a sign going to come into play if a distracted teen disobeys a signal or stop sign? No.
Although Kessler means well, it is like trying to put a band-aid over a stab wound. The gash will bleed through.
What we do know is stronger regulation and increasing a driver’s time behind the wheel does decrease the likelihood of an injury, fatality or accident. Taking this into consideration, it is obvious that a static sticker is not going to really aid new drivers. Rather than be submissive, it is time to take a proactive role in licensing.
It is unrealistic to increase age restrictions on newly licensed teens. For instance, if you live in a midwestern state, it is imperative to have an automobile to reach points of interest. But, one method that could be implemented is increasing time constraints with professional instruction. In my great state of New Jersey, the professional instruction period was a paltry eight hours when I received my permit. This is not even remotely enough time for a student driver to garner a “feel,” for a particular car.
Knowing this, professional instruction needs to be risen to a higher level of importance, rather than be looked at as though it is a chore. Also, it is crucial to improve the quality of professional instruction. What do I mean?
There has to be training outside of real-world situations. How is a new driver suppose to react when they are not sure of their vehicle’s true capabilities? Every newly licensed driver should be put through, at minimum, a one-day course that lets students explore the limits of their car on a closed course with professional instruction. Imagine a course that covered high-speed avoidance techniques, hydroplaning and things like 60-0 braking? Then, no one would be unconfident on the road.
By doing so, every driver will become fully aware of what a car is entirely capable of in hairy situations. Once again, this dials up experience behind the wheel. To be quite frank, I am pretty sure plenty of adults require this in-depth training.
For instance, certain topics like front-wheel drive vehicles and rear-wheel drive vehicles and how they react in varied conditions should be covered. Do many young teen drivers understand the concept of understeer and oversteer? Probably not. But, they should.
When all is said and done, magnetic tags is not going to do much except embarrass your poor child. More than likely, after being teased, the young’n will remove the sticker anyhow. What is the probability you would see your child behind the wheel without it and be able to punish them anyhow? Then, you will be in charge of driving them around as though they were 12 again. Not fun.
So, who’s with me? Let’s teach the children proper driving and please let’s not drop the ball with these half-assed stickers. It’s the easy way out.
rp
Want more updates?
Follow along at twitter.com/rposluszny
Posts
