Parents Spy on Their Teen Drivers
New Tracking Devices Report Teen Driving Habits

By Jim Evans

What can parents do when their teenagers begin to drive, except wring their hands with worry and hope that all of their upbringing will influence them to be good drivers? A teenager’s lack of driving experience, the tendency to take unnecessary risks, and the feeling of invincibility — all of these things can be hazardous, and even fatal, behind the wheel.

According to the Insurance Institute for Driving Safety (IIDS), traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for teenagers who drive, and 15 teenagers are killed on America’s highways every day. Not surprising, teenage drivers also have the highest rate of accident risk of any other age group. They are four times more likely to be in an accident and three times more likely to die in an accident. The most dangerous age is 16 — the age when drivers are 20 times more likely to have an accident than other drivers. The latter statistic is particularly alarming since 16 is the typical age when teens first become eligible for a driver’s license in most states.

But now, through the wonders of modern technology, parents can monitor the driving habits of their teenage drivers through tiny Global Positioning System (GPS) devices — miniature satellite tracking systems — covertly installed under the dash of any vehicle. These remarkable little devices can record the exact location of teen drivers, address of each destination, names of streets traveled, miles driven, how long the vehicle remained at each location, and how fast the vehicle is driven at any given time and place. The devices record even hard accelerations and decelerations, hard braking or cornering, time and date of trips, distance traveled, and more. They can be disengaged and plugged in to a simple PC at the end of each day to download the complete driving history of the vehicle.

Parents can also be directly notified by cell phone, email, or pager when their teen has arrived at certain destinations (or not), exceeds the speed limit, or other transgressions. Some devices and/or their accessories even allow parents to directly influence their teen drivers from a distance by flashing a light on the dashboard or honking the horn as a warning whenever they are alerted about a behavior they don’t like. They can even disable the car’s starter remotely to put an immediate stop to any unsafe conduct such as reckless driving or drag racing.

While some teens may not like the idea of their parents being invisible “backseat drivers,” they usually adapt and develop better driving habits which gives parents some relative peace of mind. Accidents can still happen, of course, but the increased use of these tracking devices is expected to reduce teen accidents and fatalities. Modern parenting has really gone high-tech when it comes to teen driving!