Teenage road trips are a timeless rite of passage. Sometime between ages 17 and 20, a group of young adults will start to dream about getting away together. Do you remember your first independent road trip with friends? It can be a great adventure! Even the misadventures usually make for entertaining memories.
Now as a parent, you might have a different perspective on teen road trips. It feels pretty risky to send your child out into the unknown at their current level of experience and maturity. At the same time, road trips are a great opportunity for older teens to explore the world a little before they have too many responsibilities. It’s hard to know for sure if your teen is ready, but sometimes you need to take that leap of faith and let them go.
You don’t, however, have to send them out totally blind. Help your teen driver and their friends prepare for their road trip with a practical safety plan that they can easily follow.
Follow the Law, Not Every Other Driver
Well before their road trip, all the drivers in your teen’s group should have spent a decent amount of time driving on the highway. Whether you have had them practice locally on Route 309, Route 95, the Turnpike, and the Northeast Extension, or you had them share driving duties to your family vacation spot, you should confirm that your teen driver knows how to handle traffic at high speeds, merging, taking exits, and watching for changes.
That being said, teens driving with parents is different from teens driving with other teens. Have a serious conversation with at least your own teen, but the whole group if possible, about behaving safely in all circumstances. It’s tempting to take risks when the adults aren’t around, but driving stakes are always too high to play those games. Challenge your teens to hold each other accountable to the rules of the road.
The big reminders for teens heading out on a road trip are these:
Drive the speed limit, and slow down if the weather calls for it.
Drive in the right or middle lane, and ONLY use the left lane for passing. It’s illegal to drive in the left lane if you’re not in the act of passing, and you can get a ticket. On wider highways, don’t use the right lane to pass cars in the middle lane. Even though other drivers do this, it’s not safe.
Don’t follow cars too closely, whether traveling at the speed limit or during periods of slowed traffic. You need more room than you think you do to come to a stop. If someone is following you too closely, try to make it easy for them to pass you.
Pay close attention to your speed when you’re not on the highway. If your highway goes through a town, or you need to take an exit onto local roads, you’re going to naturally try to come back up to the 55 or 60 mph you were just traveling. Keep an eye on your speed, and obey the local limits!
Make sure all the teens in the car are committed to getting safely to their destination. The drivers need to take breaks every 1-2 hours to avoid exhaustion. Passengers should behave themselves, and everyone ought to have a good idea of the route to avoid getting lost.
Be Safe and Aware in Unfamiliar Surroundings
Safety is not always just about driving. If your teen and their friends are on a road trip, they will probably need to make a few stops along the way. What is their safety plan for that? Not every exit is right for a pit stop.
A good rule of thumb is to only take an exit for gas, the bathroom, or food if you can see your location from the highway. A safe place to stop usually has a few large gas stations and fast food restaurants directly off the exit. These areas are well lit and busy enough to be relatively safe. When the kids do stop, they should check their surroundings for anything that doesn’t look quite right, stay in groups, lock the car, and keep their possessions out of sight or with them. Highway rest stops are usually okay for a quick bathroom stop. Again, they need to look around and trust their guts. If it doesn’t feel safe, get back in the car and go!
They also need to run through the steps of what to do if they have car trouble, or if they get in an accident. Can the group change a tire, call for roadside assistance, and navigate safely out of traffic? As a group, the teens can handle a lot of different issues if they keep their wits about them and follow the safety guidelines they have learned. Above all, they need to know that their parents are safe to call when things aren’t going well. Parents can make all the difference in the world by simply being a calm and reassuring voice on the other end of the phone.
Something that almost all of us will experience at some point in our driving lives is being messed with by another driver. Sometimes this is malicious, and a driver really just wants to scare or even harm others. Other times it’s oblivious disregard for the law and safety. Some examples are drivers that:
Follow too close behind but never pass even if you slow down
Pull in front of you, slow down, but then speed up so you can’t pass them
Weave in and out of traffic, pass illegally, and behave recklessly
Meander too much around their own lane, sometimes crossing the lane line
We can’t know why people do what they do, but another driver’s lack of courtesy is unsettling! Remind your teens that they should never try to retaliate. The best thing to do is get away from the other driver. If that means slowing down for a few minutes until the car is out of sight, then it’s worth the extra few minutes. If it’s really worrisome, they can take an exit and follow an alternate route for a little while. If someone is driving really dangerously, one of the passengers should call the state police to report what is happening. They will need to give the mile marker of the highway, as well as the license plate number and description of the other car.
Stay Alert, Stay Safe, Have Fun
If your teen’s road trip is taking them several states away or to a location that’s very different from home, remind them that there is a culture to how people drive based on where they live. Even just the difference of driving here in the Montgomery and Bucks County suburbs versus Philadelphia is remarkable.
Believe it or not, Pennsylvanians in general tend to be fairly safe drivers. Drivers in the southern and southwestern states have much higher rates of accidents and fatalities than we do. If your teen is going to be pretty far away from home, they need to be aware of how the locals drive, but never follow unsafe practices. Remember, getting honked at and annoying someone for the 15 seconds they will be in your life is preferable to the consequences of a crash or being pulled over.
Could your teen use a refresher on highway driving before their road trip? Contact us to schedule a set of Four Driving Lessons customized to your teen’s needs. Our instructors are happy to help you set your teen and their friends up for a fun and safe vacation.
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