Driver Safety Education Blog

As the summer really gets into gear, our new young drivers will be behind the wheel more often than during the school year. The possibility of collisions goes up and an increase in serious injury or death goes up too.

Here is a collection of articles concerning this topic.

First, we have an article from AddictionInfo.org called, Driving Deaths Peak in Summer, Parents Can Help Deter Poor Decisionmaking. A quote from the article regarding teens, "...there are more driving-related deaths in the summer months than in any other season of the year, and parents have reason for concern over their children's safety". Some good research-related info and tips.

The next one is from the City of Ottawa called, Safe Young Drivers – You Hold the Key. A lot of good info there.

The next one is called, Nighttime driving, passenger transport, and injury crash rates of young drivers, and is a study and results which can be downloaded as a PDF file, which is linked on the page.

This one is from DUB/Daily and is a good article called, Summer Driving Tips for Teens. An excerpt, "Summer vacation for teens marks the beginning of the “100 deadliest days”". A good read for parents and teens.

From Young Drivers of Canada we have this article called, General Summer Driving Tips from Young Drivers of Canada.

There are many articles available about teen summer driving but I'll finish up with this one called, Driver Education: Traffic Safety for New High School Graduates.

Drive smart - Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike

I came across a website which extols the virtues of "Commentary Driving" or what I have previously referred to as, "Say it out Loud". This site seems to be a good young driver resource.
Commentary Driving has been around for a long time and is incorporated in driving instruction in some jurisdictions, like Manitoba.

The web page that started me off at the site is called, Driver Education: How Teens Can Drive Safely on the Expressway, part of the Safe Teen Driving Blog site in Florida. It is quite good and gives much for thought. I think it will help parents help their driving kids. An excerpt from the article, "A complete driver-training program includes lessons on all types of streets and highways, both night and day, in a variety of weather and traffic conditions. But many teens get the majority, if not all, of their driver training on familiar roads close to home. Some young drivers do not make their first expressway trip until after they are licensed and driving on their own. This is a high-risk method for teens to gain driving experience...".

Some really good tips there.

Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike

Sometimes a person just doesn't care about the other driver in front or back when parallel parking. Here is a photo of a interesting situation for the white MPV. Notice the white vehicle left enough space to get out, if a driver, such as the one behind it, should do as shown in the photo.

So, leave enough space to get out when you want to, instead of cussing because you can't leave when you want to leave. The situation above was, vehicles parked all day with the vehicles that get there earlier being closer to the building. So, the vehicle in front of the white one was there earlier and the one behind it later and squeezing in to try and beat fire hydrant spacing.

Not nice.

Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike

Sometimes our new young drivers are in a head space not conducive to safe driving. It may be that they are thinking about something that happened that day, or perhaps what they are going to do later. In any event, it is good to do a driver check before heading out. Ask the driver if they are ready and a gentle reminder about paying attention doesn't hurt either. That usually get them back to the reality of driving.

So instead of looking but not seeing, they should be ready to see their drivers environment again. "Say it out Loud" is good to get their attention back too.

Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike

This is a short post to show you Manitoba's young driver program in schools.

Manitoba Public Insurance pays for almost all the driver instruction, with a charge of only $50.00 for each student taking part. This includes classroom training and in-car training. Here is the link to their program, High School Driver Education Program.

Drive safe...

Cheers - Mike