How Do We Choose What Teens Our Teen Rides With?

Hi H.,

I'll tell you what my mom did (as I don't have any that old yet). We were only allowed to ride with a driver who had had their license for at least 6 months, and this driver also had to be the same gender as us (I'm assuming that that was so we didn't have boyfriends driving us home!). Occassionally the rules would be bent (homecomings, proms, etc.), but for the most part the person had to be driving for 6 months and we had to stay in town. Hope this helps and good luck...I'm dreading that day!

Hey H.

Why don't you envite those friends over for a cook out or a dinner. A get together. Have a good time and find out what they are like. Ask question. Get their oppinions. Make friends with them if you can.

God bless
Vicki W.

Any of us could have a fatal accident at any time, but you can learn which of his friends are more mannerly, responsible, accountable, kind, capable, coordinated, etc. by having them congregate at YOUR house as much as possible. Get to know them by talking, eating and playing with them on your own turf. That's the simplest way I know of.

My children are only 13 right now so I don't have to deal with this yet. I recently went through a drivers course. In that course I was told of a TN law that I was unaware of. It was that while a child is 16, they are only allowed to have ONE passenger in the car with them. Now of course, the cops are not enforcing this because they would spend all their time pulling over cars with groups of kids in it, but if your child is 16 and gets pulled over and has a group of kids with him, there will be an additional ticket that will have to be paid. This law is there because a 16 year old does not have the experience and does not need the distractions that a car full of friends will provide. I will enforce this when my children get their license because of the exercises that we did in this class. It was an exercise to show how you can be distracted and not notice things. We had to watch a video of a group of kids passing a basket ball. Half the kids wore blue shirts, half wore white. You were to try and count how many times the basket ball was passed by the kids wearing the blue shirts. After counting that, the instructor asked how many people saw the gorilla. Then it was shown again without asking you to concentrate on the ball passing....clearly and unmistakenly there was a gorilla wearing a blue shirt that passed right through the picture. This just shows you what you miss even when you are concentrating. That being said, I believe that the law regarding 16 year olds to only have one passenger is a good one....it is one that will be followed in my house. (Fortunately, I have twins so there will always be a passenger in the car. HA HA mama gets the last laugh!!)

My older sons are 19 and 17. I know all of their friends. They go to school together, play sports together, hang out together. I know the boys and I know their parents. I have never had any concerns about them going places together. Their friends are nice kids. We know they are teenage boys and we aren’t in never never land on this one. We check in with parents all the time to make sure that the boys are telling all the parents the same story about where they are going and what they are doing. We have found that when they lie they tell different lies to all the parents. They don’t get together and make up a lie together.

I know they are teenagers. I know they make bad choices some times. I know that once they are in a car they have more bad choices they can make. For example, my son didn't tell me he was picking up a friend to go to a rival football team's game. He told me he was going to the game, he didn't tell me he was picking up his friend. He met his friend in the parking lot of the Catholic Church. The boys were robbed at gunpoint by thugs wearing masks and hoodies. I never would have dreamed they would not be safe there. If he had asked me I would have said, "Yes. You can pick up your friend in the Catholic Church parking lot." It is on a busy street, in a church parking lot with people in the church, in a neighborhood that I thought was safe.

So, he didn't even make a bad choice in picking up his friend. I would have let him make that choice. But the bad choice was not telling his parents that he was going to do that. They were on their way to the game. His friend called and didn't have a ride. He picked him up from his church to take him to the game. The frightening thing was, if they had been harmed or abducted we would not have been able to tell the police where to start looking for them. My sons learned a scary lesson about communicating with your parents about exactly where you are going.

We have to let our children grow up and that is one of the hardest parts of being a parent--letting them go. My suggestion to you would be to do everything you can to get to know their friends--go to their school events, sporting events, band concerts, debates, art shows, everything your child participates in. Talk to the parents of your children's friends and get to know them. Exchange phone numbers and communicate with your children’s friends. My favorite line is… “Let me talk to your friend’s mom and then we will get back to you about you all going there and doing that.” We have let them do lots of things that I never dreamed we would have let them do. We have let them go to after prom parties at a girl’s home after we talked to the girl’s parents. Once we knew two of the girl’s moms and dads were supervising we were OK with it. Keep the lines of communication open with the parents of your children’s friends.

Keep the lines of communication open with your child. Sit down and have a talk with your child about going places in the car with their friends driving and the responsibilities of when they are the driver. Talk about driving safely. Talk about what to do if they don’t feel safe. Make sure they know that they can always call mom and dad to bail them out—no matter where they are, they will not get in trouble, with no questions asked if they want it that way.

At some point they are going to be 18 years old and going off to college. You have to help them learn how to make good choices while they are still living under your roof. This is one of those teachable moments. My oldest is in college now. He says the kids with really strict parents are going “hog wild.” When they came home for Christmas one of his friends had lost the HOPE scholarship and almost flunked out of school after one semester. His parents are divorce and he stayed with his mom all Christmas break because his very strict dad was so mad at him he wasn't speaking to him. I said to him, “You are a good student. You are majoring in a subject you love. What happened?” He said, “I had never had that kind of freedom and I didn’t know how to handle it.” I think it is important to give our teenagers freedom with responsibility and teach our children how to handle it.

Ben there and done this one more than once now. This is a scary issue isn't it? We handled it much the same way as we handled who to let them play with as grade schoolers. We have tried hard to teach them how to make wise decisions. By the time they turn 16 we can only hope that all the teaching, training and praying will pay off. We continue to stay very involved in our boy's lives. We have lots of open discussion on who is doing what, when, where, and why. We just keep trying to steer them in the right direction and pray that God will cover them with his care. Be sure to ask around about what may be going on with the other kids. Not to cause trouble, but simply to get a heads up on the goings on.

I've experienced the exact thing, and even now my son is 19 i still find myself worrying about who he rides with. But i've learned that you hope your child makes the right decisions on who they ride with or even be friends with. My son chooses to be friends with the wild ones, but not to ride with the wild ones.

i wasnt allowed to ride with anyone till i was 17 and then it was only the guy i was dating wasnt able to get my license till i was 18 and than had to pay insurance on a car bought for me but couldnt drive to school or any where really till i graduated i turned 18 in sept my senior year and didnt graduate till the following may

honestly any 16 year old would hate me for this answer. but none! My god if my parents (or the cops) know what i did when i was 16 with my friends in the car i would be in biggg trouble.its not safe until they are at least 18 kids have a tendency to distract each other and talk others in to something that sounds like a great idea but really isnt...good luck!

Be available to your 16 year old. My son didn't get his license til he was 17 and before that I drove him to where he needed to go. He rode with one boy from church who was a couple years older than he and that was only to youth group and back.
I have a 13 year old with many older friends and they are taking driver's ed now. I will get her to where she needs to be until she gets her own license.
VA has the same law and the schools put a sticker on the car. If it is yellow(or whatever) they have only had their license for under 6 months. Then it changes to a different color, I think there were three levels.

Some states (NC is one of them)have a graduated license which governs who can be in the car with new drivers (nobody under 18 not related or sometimes no underage unless there is also an adult). Try to use that first, so you are not "the bad guy". Good luck. I have an AG almost 17 year old with learning and other issues who doesn't have her license yet and she's not allowed to ride with anybody (usually even adults) we haven't at least met yet. Of course, that doesn't prevent her from doing so.

nobody is really "safe" we are going through this with my 16 year old. He can't ride with anyone who talks on the phone, texts, or who we haven't already met. You kinda have to trust your son to not make bad descisions. I prefer the driver to have the passanger change cd's, radio stations, reach for fallen things ect...and always buckle up!!!

okay, call me devious because I would suggest hiding and following the friends to see how they drive when they don't know they are being watched.
I like the answers of getting to know them as well, but it is more than that. My Freshman year, my cousin drove us to school because my mom knew her. But my goodness - her driving scared me half to death. I would not have let my kids ride with her if I knew she drove that way.
Good luck.
-D.

Take a ride with them! Ask them to give you a ride to the store, and decide who is the most responsible. You do not want them riding with an irresponsible, aggresive driver. That is your child, your life, and you have that right. If they have a problem with giving you a ride... take them off the list of safe people.

I have to say I'm always a little distressed by comments like, "The cops don't enforce the law because ..."

Cops also don't enforce drunk driving laws unless there is an acciddnet or some other egregious violation. Cops also don't enforce license suspensions and drunk drivers get their licenses taken away ever day in court then go out and drive away from the courthouse! People run red lights right in front of officers who let it pass simply because they are disinclined to deal with the paperwork or just don't want to get out and write a ticket.

There is never a good reason for an officer of the law to not ticket someone who is in violation of the law. Cops spend plenty of time cruising the streets ... what else are they doing out there while waiting for a call for some break-in somewhere or gunshots fired? Those "little" infractions they tend to overlook cause deaths. Unforgivable.

Newly licensed drivers tend to be young and inexperienced. They have not developed the "driving sense" that comes with years of on-road driving that gives them a heightened ability to gauge situations, timing, responses, etc. They are prone to joking with their friends in or outside their car, messing with the radio, talking on their cell phones. They tend to be more easily distracted by outside influences.

On a percentage basis of their age group, 16 - 18 y/o are involved in more accidents than any other group (including senior citizens) and yet most states require a minimal amount of driver training (if any) before allowing an adolescent on the road unsupervised. With rare exceptions, 60 hours of driver training is not enough to give a teenager the road experience they need to be safe drivers. My grandson was behind the wheel of a car at the age of 12. He was driving in empty parking lots, progressing to closed track. By the time he was old enough to get his permit, he was comfortable behind the wheel of a car and was not constantly thinking about everything he had to remember. Kind of like learning to write/spell or fly a plane, there is a learning process. It takes awhile to move from thinking through every step of the process to being able to do things reflexively. Driving I-465 in Indianapolis can be a daunting endeavor but my daughter joked she should ask for a refund from the driving school. It was "A++ Driving School" and he only got an A+ on his tests!

That being said, I wholeheartedly agree with the assessment to do the driving/chauffeuring yourself. And don't force your son to get behind the wheel of a car if he is not comfortable but, more than likely, he will one day want to get that license so you want him to get as much wheel time as possible. Keep his learner's permit up to date and encourage him to go driving with you whenever you can. If he is uncomfortable driving on busy streets, take him to rural areas where he will have less traffic to deal with. Make sure he is comfortable behind the wheel before he goes for his driver's license. And don't rely on church groups to be dependable judges of a driver's ability. A recent incident in Louisville, KY involved a group of kids leaving a church event one evening and, with many students getting dropped off but riding a church bus home, the bus was full before all students could get on. Chaperones allowed kids to ride home with students who drove. A tragic accident killed two brothers and their cousin on the way home that night after they were sent home with an older student.

Until you can control the situation and are absolutely, 100% sure your son is with a safe driver (preferably himself), you be his driver. It's a little inconvenient at times but, if something happened to him while riding in another kids car, you'd never forgive yourself. It's worth a little extra inconvenience to be sure he is as safe as he can be.

I am not facing this just yet. As a child I remember only two times when my parents let me ride with a friend before I went to college. With few exceptions I was not allowed to drive the car unless one of my parents or grandparents was in the car.

I would check the NC driving laws. Many states have passed new laws since we got our driver's license. I believe in our state that driver's who are under the age of 18 must have a front seat passenger who is over 21 if they are driving a vehicle with other passengers in the vehicle.

I know that it would appear to be convenient for you if your child could ride with other teenage friends, but teenagers are inexperienced driver's who are experiencing a lot of physical, mental and emotional growth and have the opportunity to make more and more independent decisions and many times quite frankly we all made a lot of poor decisions at that age that we should not have. If I were you I would evaluate each situation and how well you know the driver and their family. I hope that your child has a good habit of wearing their seat belt correctly and that you feel you could trust him to do so when or if he rides with peers. That does not guarantee that nothing will happen. Unfortunately, accidents can happen to any of us at any time.

My 16-year old has his permit and I know he'll want to drive to school once he gets his license. But he'll be taking the bus. The only ones in the car would be my 16-year old and his little brother (who will be a freshman next year) but it's still too risky. Any teens in a car together, no matter who they are, increase the dangers. The only non-parents I'll allow to ride with my kids, at least until they're 18, are their older brothers.

We have two children who are of driving age. We have to approve who is in the car with them while they are driving. Usually they are not riding with someone else, but on the occassion that they are, we also have to approve that. But it would be that way even if the parent were driving. Our kids know what our standards are and when ANY change to the plan is made, they must call us first - for example, the case of the accident in Louisville that was referenced. If our kids had been put into a car with someone when we thought they were riding the bus, they would know to call us first. If I didn't know the kid (as I think was the case) I would have driven to get them or insisted that the event provide them the safe transportation they had promised.

Also, you have to be very careful about allowing your pre-teen to drive in parking lots. In Indiana, they are considered the same as the roadway and if you are caught, tickets can be issued. We just dealt with this two nights ago. The teens were gathered at the church for their weekly service and many were outside playing frisbee and riding skateboards waiting for things to start. A 15 year old girl who lives in the neighborhood drove into the parking lot with her 18 year old boyfriend. She has a permit and they were practicing her driving. However, the terms of her permit are that the person she drives with has to be a licensed relative in the front seat. We were concerned about the safety of the kids and so we called the police. Parking lots are considered the same as roadways, so be very careful about letting unlicensed drivers on non-private property.

The bottom line for me is to talk to my kids about safe driving. I let them know that I am available to pick them up anytime, anywhere if they do not feel safe driving or riding with someone they feel is driving in an unsafe manner.