Safety Tips

How To Keep Tabs on Your Teen Driver

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Thanks to commercial satellites, digital memory devices, miniature cameras and GPS tracking, it's easier than ever to keep tabs on your teen driver.

But should you? Does using GPS to track a teen driver represent a violation of the trust that should exist between you and your teen? Is it an invasion of your teen's privacy? Or is it responsible parenting?

The answers are yes, yes and yes.

NHTSA data shows that unaccompanied 16- and 17-year-olds crash nine times more often than adults. And when their parents are out of the car, seatbelt use plummets to less than 40 percent of the national average. While the accident data shows that teens and their teenage passengers are by far the most accident-prone group, that isn't the case when Mom or Dad is riding along. A monitoring tool may be the "next best thing" to having a parent riding shotgun, though few teens are likely to admit that.

Rusty Weiss is director of the consumer division at DriveCam, which sells monitoring cameras to parents. When his company shows parents video of their teens driving, they are often shocked to see how their kids behave when driving alone. "Parents couldn't recognize the risky behaviors," says Weiss. A frequent problem: Teens take corners too fast and have to brake so late and hard that their safety belts lock up.

Weiss thinks having a camera in the car "prevents some of the craziest stuff — the 'if I got caught doing this I'd never be able to drive again' stuff."

Teenagers tend to respond by driving more safely with such devices, says J. Peter Kissinger, CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. "People raise questions like, 'Does that destroy the trust?' It probably depends on the relationship you have with your teenager."

But DriveCam's Weiss says not all devices are created equal when it comes to trust. He says some parents have complained to him that using GPS monitoring made them feel that they were spying on their teens over the Internet. The goal, he says, should be catching them if "they drive in an unsafe manner," not because they are visiting "friends that Mom and Dad don't approve of sometimes."

High-Tech Monitor Options Abound
Some more advanced systems marry different technologies, while others allow parents to do it themselves.

• State-of-the-art pedometers and watches come equipped with GPS devices, so that exercise-conscious adults can log distances and terrain covered on their jogs or walks for upload to their PCs. Charge its battery, set the GPS device and leave it under the car seat. Collect it when the car is returned. You'll get the same info on your teen's travels.



• Sprint's Family Locator and Verizon's Chaperone service use a teen's GPS-equipped cell phone to keep them under the watchful eye of the satellites. Parents can then log into online sites to follow their teen's location.



• A "black box" similar to devices used to track emergency vehicles and commercial trucks lets parents monitor teen driving in real-time through a laptop or cell phone. The system, which blends cell phone technology with GPS, can be preset to snitch by sending automatic alerts when a young driver is driving too fast, too far or somewhere he's not meant to be. The system also records speed, miles covered and other driving details on a memory card that can be downloaded later. Black-box makers include Road Safety International and Alltrack USA. In June 2007, Safeco Insurance began offering "Teensurance," a GPS monitoring device for teens and online tools to reinforce good driving.



• DriveCam's more advanced system employs a tiny onboard camera that records when risky driving, including speeding, hard-braking or swerving from lane to lane, occurs. (See video) The video information, including images from the seconds immediately preceding the precipitating event, is sent to a panel of safety analysts who provide diagnoses and possible solutions. American Family Insurance policy holders are eligible for a free one year subscription to the Teen Safe Driver Program. If you have a different insurance provider, DriveCam also offers the technology to any interested families for $899, including installation and a year's subscription. (For details on DriveCam and how it works, see "Smile, You're on DriveCam.")