I Want To Get Auto Insurance For Good Teenage Driver
Reader question:
I know my teenager drives well, but he doesn’t pay as much attention as necessary at times and I’m worried that he could get into an accident and hurt himself or cause our car insurance rates to go up. Is there anything that I can do about this? He’s a good kid, so I don’t want to take away his privileges.
Mary Anne
Great question, Mary Anne.
I completely understand your situation, and I also get that you don’t want to punish your son for practicing the common teenage gift of absent mindedness. However, you have to remember that while he’s being the wheel, his lack of attention could end up in at the best higher teen driver car insurance rates, and at the worst a serious car accident. The first thing that I would do would be to sit down and talk to him about paying more attention on the road.
After that, whether he starts to pay more attention or not, I would enroll him in a defensive driving course. Most teen driver car insurance companies will give you a discount for taking a defensive driving course, and they are often good for the whole family so that rates for everyone can be lowered.
Defensive driving can be helpful in supplementing the knowledge that your son learned in his driver’s education courses. It goes beyond simply knowing the laws of the road and teaches teenagers and their parents about one of the most important concepts for owners of a teen driver car insurance policy–accident avoidance.
There are several types of classes that you can take, and usually you can call your teen driver car insurance company and ask them which ones will be acceptable to count towards the discount. One of my favorites, though, that I have heard of is Xtreme Measures, which is taught by David Reutimann, a driver for NASCAR. This defensive driving class is accepted by many teen driver car insurance companies, and besides that, it travels! It was in California recently, and a bunch of teenagers took the two day course that involved intense lessons and fun obstacle courses. Here is a bit of advice from the course for driving while it’s raining:
- If you notice that the weather is starting to turn foul, double check your windshield wipers. You do NOT want to get caught out in the rain without wipers. Believe me, one time the motor on my wipers broke, and I was an hour away from home. I bought something that you can spray on your window which will make the rain just slide off to the side, and it’s great. You can ask for it at your local auto parts shop and they’ll know what you mean. I would keep it on hand for emergencies.
- Keep your windshield clean. Get the dirt, bugs, and bird poop off before you go driving. It helps you to see better.
- If it’s raining hard, go slow enough so that you can squint your eyes and drive according to how far ahead you can see.
- If the rain is pouring too hard, get off the road and find somewhere to hang out until it dies down.
The suggestions and real life practices are fantastic, and can help your teen drive more safely and also lower your teen driver car insurance rates.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
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