This is a compensated post for Michelin. All opinions are my own. #SafeTires #TMOM
My teenage driving was the worst! I blame it on my parents lack of willingness to drive with me for the YEAR that I had my learners permit. In that year, I drove exactly 4 times with 4 different family members. None of them had the patience to teach me to drive correctly. They got impatient while I was driving because I was not very good at it. I took drivers ed, but that is not sufficient to teach a teenager to drive. It definitely helped, but as with most things, practice makes perfect. With driving, it seems to me that driving with a parent or adult is much safer than driving alone or driving with other teenagers. A lot of my mistakes could have been avoid if my parents would have taken the time to teach me to drive.
That’s me at 15 all the way on the right.
BUT, I need to let them off the hook a little bit because I was an independent and very stubborn teenager. I am sure that I made it very difficult to get me to do anything. I understand their apprehension and unwillingness to teach me at this age, BUT at the end of the day, a car can be very dangerous and we are all lucky nothing bad happened.
Here I am as a teenager in a parade for homecoming.
I cannot even imagine where I would have been without Driver’s Ed. It seems that the current Teen Driver’s Ed lacks a meaningful conversation about Tire Safety.
Automobile accidents are the No. 1 killer of teens in America, with 5,000 deaths each year.[1] What’s more, of the 2.2 million accidents per year among inexperienced drivers, 12 percent can be attributed to tire related issues, such as insufficient tread or pressure.[2] Even so, few driver’s education programs offer instruction on tire maintenance and safety.
Because many of these accidents are preventable, Michelin and FIA have joined together to launch a new campaign, Beyond the Driving Test, to raise awareness of tire maintenance and safety. This will make available resources designed to initiate conversation between parents and teens, and among teen drivers and their peers. The two organizations will also be working with national groups and state organizations to meet the goal of having all 50 states include some form of tire safety information in their individual driver’s education curricula by 2020.
[1] NHTSA Youth Traffic Safety Statistics
[2] 2012 NHTSA study focused on tire problems as experienced by light vehicles in the pre-crash phase
Grant Program
Michelin created a grant program specifically calling for people to submit ideas on a way to increase Teen Driver safety within driver education models in the areas of Miami and LA. ONE grant winner will be chosen and announced on March 14that the Miami FIA Formula E Series race.
Grant Winner
ADTSEA (the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association) is the winner of a $100,000 Michelin/FIA Teen Road Safety Grant.
Automobile accidents are the No. 1 killer of teens in America, with more than 5,000 deaths each year.* Of the 2.2 million vehicle accidents taking place annually, 12 percent are among inexperienced drivers and involve tire-related issues such as insufficient tire tread or improperly inflated tires.** In addition to this grant, Michelin and FIA are making resources available at beyondthedrivingtest.com to help teens and parents brush up on their car and tire maintenance skills.
The grant program is a significant new initiative to improve the safety of teen drivers by teaching proper tire maintenance. In addition to continuing the goals of Michelin’s Beyond the Driving Test campaign, this first year of the program celebrates the North American debut of the FIA-sanctioned Formula E Championship in Miami and Long Beach, Calif., by helping to create a lasting legacy in those communities. Formula E is the highest class of competition for electrically powered cars.
Twitter Party
Come to the Twitter Party by following #TMOM and #SafeTires tags on March 23rd. Join and share their perspective on teen driving safety and education in the US. They are giving away a set of Tires… Nearly $600 value at the Twitter Party.
Giveaway
Now that you know my teenage driving story, do you have one to share with me?
Thanks for sharing your driving story. I learned from my dad, and I taught all of my kids. Hubby was too jumpy!
Thank you for sharing! My daughter was scared to death to drive. No one in the family could calm her or teach her so we hired a teacher. She passed all of her tests and got her license before then, but she did not want to drive! The private teacher helped a TON! She is a wonderful driver now.
oh man, my boy will be driving this year….he’s looking forward to it, but I’m not.
I had the pleasure of teaching my nephew and he had a hard time learning to judge distance. He almost got us killed a couple of times. My son and daughter did great learning how to drive.
MY DAUGHTER….IT WAS SCARY
going to the party!!