Don't they love their pets?

I'm really more of a dog person than a cat person, but my cat, Tiger Woods is a dog-cat. (My daughter wants to rename him "Phil Mickelson" because she's mad at Tiger, but that's another story). He really is an exceptional cat and I love him.
He hates the car and cries almost constantly when we take him to the cottage or the vet. If we can spare him the discomfort, we leave him home - but sometimes it's necessary to take him along. In those cases, he travels in his pet taxi. It's a closed container that we make as comfy as possible for him, but I would never let him run free in the car. I'd be afraid he'd jump in my lap as I was headed down the highway and I'd crash the vehicle!
But I see people with pets in their laps on the road all the time.
Don't they love their pets?
I know that dogs travel better in cars, but allowing them to sit in their laps is so dangerous. There are so many reasons this is wrong, but one is - the airbag! Don't they know that if the airbag deploys, their beloved pet will be crushed to death, and they could be badly injured too?

If you love your pet, restrain it in the car. Pet seat belts are available. So are pet taxis like the one Tiger Woods has.

When will parents learn?

The link below is to an article in Yahoo News about a 5 year-old who crashed his van into his house and other property.
Yes - a 5-year old!
His mother was taking him skating and forgot the skates so she left the car running with him in it and when back into the house to get them. He got out of his car seat, moved into the driver's seat and put the car in reverse.
Fortunately, he wasn't hurt and the damage was minor but the story could have ended in any number of really terrible scenarios.
When will some parents learn that you NEVER leave a child alone in a running vehicle?

"The Middle" and Being the Cool Parents

Did you watch "The Middle" last night?
It's a very funny show with a great cast and even greater writing. In last night's episode, the parents realized their son, Axel, was spending a lot of time at his friend's house because the friend's house was cooler and the friend's parents were cooler than they were.
They started a campaign to become the coolest parents. They bought a pool table, bought cool junk food snacks to serve to their kids' visiting friends and said things to kids that they thought were the cool things to say.
Needless to say - it all back-fired. They practically went broke buying the snacks and had to hide out to eat dinner to avoid getting swarmed by hungry teens. The pool table ended up piled with junk. The 'cool' things they said blew up and caused trouble. And the bottom line was that they tried so hard to be cool that they forgot to be parents.
Parenting is hard work and takes some tough choices. When parents make decisions based on being cool - they'll fail every time.
I read about a mom who tried to be cool by tossing her car keys to her unlicensed, uninsured son so he could pick up his friends. He killed 2 of the friends in a crash caused by his careless driving. That "cool" mom is now in prison. Her son has yet to be sentenced but will never get overkilling his friends.
Parents need to make the best decisions they can - to support and safeguard their kids. Being 'cool' shouldn't even be a remote consideration.

Girl Drivers are Becoming as Aggressive as Boys

In the last 10 days, we've driven to Florida and back. That's more than 50 hours on the road - (mostly I75) and I have to tell you - there were a lot of aggressive speedsters weaving in and out of traffic along the way!
Surprisingly (to me) at least 50% were teen girls - often with cell phones pressed into the sides of their heads. Most of them were alone and doing 10 to 20 miles over the limit. I watched as they cut off other drivers without ever even looking.

I remember the days when teen boys paid 2 to 3 times more for car insurance than girls because the girls were much more careful drivers. Sadly, that seems to be changing. Insurance rates for girls are getting higher as their crash rates climb.
This is one area where I don't want equality for my daughter.
Have other parents noticed this trend?
What are you doing about it?

I Pray that a Police Officer Gives My Daughter a Whopping Speeding Ticket!

... because that ticket could save her life.
If I don't know she's speeding or driving recklessly, I can't change it. She'll continue doing what she's doing until something terrible happens and I don't even want to think about that! I just don't get why some parents don't understand that.

6,000 teen drivers die in crashes every year. Every one of them was someone's son or daughter.

I bring this up because of what's happening in New Jersey now. Kyleigh's Law is a new law that requires teen-aged drivers to display a decal on their license plate. The force behind it is Donna Weeks of Long Valley, New Jersey. Donna lost her beautiful daughter, Kyleigh D'Alessio, in a crash in 2006. Since then, she's done everything in her power to make the roads safer for other teens.
Other parents should thank God for parents like Donna. The advantage of the decals is to identify teens with restricted licenses so police can enforce the GDL rules. If teens are driving after curfew or with other teen passengers, they can be pulled over, ticketed and their parents can be advised. A side benefit could be that teens would obey the law.

These are very good things! I've talked to too many parents who's lost sons and daughters in crashes and found out later that their teens had a need for speed or drove when they shouldn't have been driving. They wish they'd had the opportunity to talk to their teens about their behavior and change it, but it was too late.

My teen daughter, Emily, is the most precious thing in my life so I'm thrilled that there are rules in place to protect her. And if she's breaking a rule - I WANT to know about it. She'd pay for the ticket out of her own pocket, lose her driving privileges for a while and I'd send a THANK YOU card to the officer who stopped her!

It's time for people like Gregg Trautmann to parent-up. Greg is a lawyer who challenged Kyleigh's Law under the pretense of representing his son, Tim Dillon. Of course, Tim doesn't want any restrictions! He's eighteen and his brain won't mature for another 7 to 10 years! Tim is quoted in NJ.com as saying His little sister will be driving soon and he's fearful for her. "I don’t want her driving around with a sticker on her car that labels her a teen driver. I think it’s dangerous for her.” She could be stalked if some nut identifies her as a teen driver. (- Of course, without the decal - that nut could just look in the window!)
According to NJ.com, attorney Trautmann also "argued in court that the decals amount to an unreasonable search and seizure, and violate 'equal protection' rights because out-of-state drivers won’t be subject to them — unlike a speed-limit applicable to all drivers.
Of course that's a load of c--p too!
Thank heaven the judge saw through the nonsense and upheld Kyleigh's Law.

Warning about the Morning after the Party

In Minnesota today, a 19-year old girl is facing prison for crashing her car and killing her friend. Whether or not she's convicted, her life will never be the same again.

The crash didn't occur on the way home from the party. It happened the next morning at 8:45 a.m. as she drove to work. She'd been drinking the night before and thought she was safe because she'd gotten a few hours of sleep.

The crash may have happened anyway. She was driving a little too fast and lost control of the car when she hit some black ice. But she's been charged with criminal vehicular homicide because her blood alcohol concentration was still .108 that morning.

If your teen was out partying last night - think long and hard before you let them take the car to school or work the next morning.

And remember the girl who died in the back seat before you let your teen drive with someone else who was partying last night either!

GDL: Why Don’t Some States Care More about Their Teens?

The statistics are clear - the most restrictive Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) programs are the best, so I don’t understand why the governors of states with lax GDL programs aren’t pushing harder to implement more restrictive programs. Don’t they think their teens are worth it?

And why aren’t the parents of teen drivers in those states screaming at their governors to improve their programs immediately?  GDL is based on a lot of sound research by government and independent safety bodies and it’s saving teen lives.

What is GDL?
Despite the fact that cars have gotten much safer (with the invention of seatbelts, airbags, etc.), teens continued to die in crashes at outrageous numbers. As a result, many studies looked at thousands of crashes involving teen drivers and analyzed the factors that contributed to them. Based on that data, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recommended a 3-tiered driver-licensing program

A 3-stage GDL program involves:

• A Learner Stage where all driving must be supervised by a licensed adult driver
• An Intermediate (or “Provisional”) Stage where drivers can drive unsupervised under certain conditions
• A Full License which has all driving rights and privileges

Furthermore, the NHTSA provided 7 key recommendations that the 3-tiered system should be based on. They are:

1. Learner’s Permit has minimum age requirement of 16 years
2. Teen with Learner’s Permit is not eligible to take the road test and move to next level for at least 6 months.
3. Teen with Learner’s Permit must have 30-50 hours of supervised driving practice to be eligible to move to the next level
4. The minimum age for an intermediate license is 16 ½ years
5. During the intermediate stage, no solo driving is allowed between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.
6. During the intermediate stage, no more than 1 (teen) passenger is allowed
7. The minimum age for a full license is 17 years.

The purpose of these recommendations is to give teens a chance to gain skills and develop good driving habits before additional difficulties are introduced, and it’s working!

 The Proof!

According to data developed by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, all states with 3-level GDL programs reduced teen crashes significantly but the states with the strictest programs:

• Reduced the rate of fatal crashes for 16 year-old drivers by 38%!
• Reduced the rate of injury crashes for 16 year-old drivers by 40%!

And there’s still room for improvement because none of the states had implemented all 7 of the recommendations!

 How Well Does Your State Measure-up?

Following is the full GDL Model that was developed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, theNational Safety Council, the National Transportation Safety Board, and NHTSA. To find how your state measures up, click this link:   http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/license_laws.html

The Full GDL Model

Stage 1: Learner’s Permit

• State sets minimum age for a learner’s permit at 16 years
• Pass vision and knowledge tests, including rules of the road, signs, and signals
• Completion of basic driver training
• Licensed adult (who is at least 21 years old) required in the vehicle at all times
• All occupants must wear seat belts
• Teenaged-passenger restrictions
• Zero alcohol while driving
• Permit is visually distinctive from other driver licenses
• Must remain crash and conviction free for at least 6 months to advance to next level
• Parental certification of 30 to 50 practice hours
• No use of portable electronic communication and entertainment devices 

Stage 2: Intermediate (Provisional) License

• Completion of Stage 1
• State sets minimum age of 16.5
• Pass a behind the wheel road test
• Completion of advanced driver education training (safe driving, decision-making, risk education, etc.
• All occupants must wear seat belts
• Licensed adult required in the vehicle from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. (e.g., nighttime driving restriction)
• Zero alcohol while driving
• Driver improvement actions are initiated at lower point level than for regular drivers
• Provisional license is visually distinctive from a regular license
• Teenage-passenger restrictions not more than 1 teenaged passenger for the first 12 months of intermediate license.
• Afterward, limit the number of teenaged passengers to 2 until age 18
• Must remain crash and conviction free for at least 12 consecutive months to advance to the next stage
• Supervised practice
• No use of portable electronic communication and entertainment devices

Stage 3: Full License

•  Completion of Stage 2
• State sets minimum age of 18 for lifting passenger and nighttime restrictions
• Zero alcohol while driving

If you’re like me and believe your teen deserves as much protection as possible, you should support strict GDL laws in your state. If the current laws aren’t strict enough, create your own family rules to protect your teens. A Teen-Parent Driving Contract is a very good idea that will be addressed in a future post.

 Once you’ve created rules, you need to enforce them. I’ll give you some tips about how to do that later too.

Seatbelts Save Lives! Are You Sure Your Teen is Wearing One?

The #1 thing that turns a car crash into a fatal crash is that the victims were not wearing seatbelts, and tragically, a lot of those victims are teens.

I've talked to many parents who've lost their sons and daughters in crashes. In too many cases, the teens were thrown from the car and sustained fatal injuries because they weren't wearing their seatbelts. This is particularly tragic because their parents insisted that they ALWAYS WORE their seatbelts. So why did they undo them or leave them undone on that particular day?
Sometimes there were distractions that diverted their attention and they forgot.
Sometimes they were uncomfortable and wanted to relax without the restriction.
Sometimes they didn’t bother because they were only going a short distance.

Sometimes the car was overloaded so there weren't enough belts for all the passengers.
Sometimes it may have been peer pressure because no one else was wearing one either.


Every parent needs to make their teens understand that there are no excuses. They must wear their seatbelts every time they get in the car and make sure everyone else in the car does too.

And if they say that if someone in the car refuses to wear his belt – “that’s his problem” – they’re wrong! It’s the problem of every other passenger in the car too!

In a collision, any unbelted person becomes a pinball that bounces around inside the vehicle. That ‘pinball’ can smash into any other passenger causing brain damage or even death. Really!

Rules for seatbelt use
· Every passenger must wear a seatbelt including lap belt and shoulder harness
· 1 seatbelt per person (no lap-sitting or doubling up)
· If you have more people than seatbelts, make 2 trips or use 2 vehicles
· Never let anyone ride in the trunk or on the floor.
· Seats must be upright. Seatbelts will not protect the wearer when the seat is reclined.

Make it a habit to do a ‘seatbelt check’ every time you get in the car. Have each passenger check that their belt is secure and that the people beside them have buckled up too.

The statistics are scary. One in ten teens will be involved in a crash during their first year driving. Don’t let that crash be a fatal crash. Make sure your teens perform a seatbelt check every time they get in the car.

This video is graphic but it makes the point.

Welcome parents of teen drivers and future teen drivers!

Parents: Did you know that if you’re a non-smoker in reasonable health, your life expectancy is in the mid-90s - but your teenaged son or daughter’s life expectancy is only around 78? THAT'S A DIFFERENCE OF 15 to 17 YEARS!

That's what my friend, the Actuary, told me. The difference is largely because so many teens and young adults die as the result of risky behaviors and poor choices.

Well - I'm the mom of a daughter who is the center of my family - and my life. That news was horrible for me because she was entering that teen-young adult danger zone. Being a professional writer and trainer, I began writing a book for her. It was full of information I felt she needed to know to get her through that disastrous time. I wrote chapters about bullying, eating disorders, drugs, smoking, and all the issues I felt she might face, but when I researched one topic - I stopped dead in my tracks!

Almost 5,000 teens die in car crashes every year! That’s more teen deaths than from sickness, drugs, suicide – or any other cause! I think I’d heard that statistic before but it never really sank in. That means 14 teens die in crashes every day! But that’s not the full story.

Another 300,00 are seriously injured! The injuries include life-altering burns, paralysis, crushed limbs and brain injuries that require years of therapy and change the victim forever. That’s 822 devastating injuries every single day!

And the biggest tragedy is that the overwhelming majority of those crashes could have been avoided. I’ve spent the last 2 years researching topics related to teens and driving and I’ve learned a lot.

Essentially, there are 3 keys to keeping teen drivers safe:
1. Their parents need to be actively involved in coaching, monitoring and preparing them for the road.
2. Teens need good, clear information so they can make wise choices.
3. Teens need lots of structured practice. (A few hours in a parking lot won’t do.)

And the good news is that there are lots of incredible resources available to parents if you know where to look for them. This blog is a way to share what I’ve learned.

Can I guarantee your teen will survive? Unfortunately, not. I sincerely wish I could.
Can I share lots of ideas, to help you talk to, coach, and monitor your rookie teen driver? You bet I can.
That’s what this blog is all about.