Teen driving kit and driving contract, parent driving kit and contract

Purpose

of Kit

• Increase visibility of passenger cars at night
• Assist parents in the communication of their driving contracts with their teenage children
• Support good parenting endeavors with a visual reminder that children learn the driving habits of their parents.

Take Good Parenting On the Road – Insights into Protecting Our Children from Car Crashes

As a first time father-to-be I am in that stage that every parent has gone through at one point or another in their lives.  I am at the point where I want nothing but the best for my future child. 

However, what does “nothing but the best” mean?  Does it mean the type of crib, the brand of stroller, the size of car seat, or the active ingredient in the diaper rash cream we buy?

Individually speaking, the answer is unequivocally NO.  However collectively speaking, all of those products and features combined can be summed up in one concept familiar to all good parents: The Protection and Safety of our children.

Protecting and ensuring the safety of children is the one common desire that all good parents share.  However, even good parents have forgotten from time to time that our daily actions as parents are one of the biggest influences on the future habits of our children. 

It wasn’t until I started reading Martin Lindstrom’s book Brandwashed that I realized how big of an impact the daily habits we have will affect our children. 

Whether it is the style of music we play on the radio, the types of food we eat, or how we drive, we condition our children to accept our routines and actions as what is normal and later in life what may be subconsciously preferred.

Thinking back to when I was a kid (which was in the days that preceded car seats), I always rode shotgun beside my father. As a result, many of my “normal” driving habits today are exactly the same as my father’s driving habits from when I was growing up. 

While today I recognize that those “normal” driving habits are not taught in drivers education courses, whenever I point out to my father that he is driving incorrectly, he is more than happy to correct me for the same error the next time I drive him. 

No wonder the recent Allstate Foundation surveys (of Allstate Insurance Company) reveal that 89% of teens said their parents have the biggest influence on how they drive.

That being said, as a good parent what can we do to protect our children and help them make it through the teenage driving years?

Unfortunately the answer is that there is nothing we can do that will 100% guarantee our children’s safety while driving.  However, because the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is more developed in adults, as parents we do have the biological ability to make better decisions when we drive so that we condition our children to positive driving habits.

To help parents take their good parenting skills “On the Road” we have created the On the Road Family Vehicle Awareness Kit to help parents evaluate their driving habits and reinforce the expected driving habits outlined in the driving contracts they have with their children. 

Because of the increased dangers associated with nighttime driving, the kit contains two 36” strips of reflective tape (the same type of reflective tape found on semis throughout the United States) to enhance the visibility of vehicles in low light environments.