A high number of first-time drivers are eligible to hit the road this month, with a corresponding spike in parental angst. In an effort to assuage the fears of parents as their children undertake the activity most likely to kill them, Chevrolet has expanded its offering of the Teen Driver Technology feature that gives parents more oversight of driving activities and may help curb dangerous behaviors.
The feature debuted on the 2016 Chevy Malibu and will be available on ten of the brand’s vehicles for the 2017 model year: the Bolt, Camaro, Colorado, Cruze, Malibu, Silverado, Silverado HD, Suburban, Tahoe, and Volt.
Here’s how it works: Parents register their teen’s key fob in the vehicle’s system settings, and when the car recognizes that fob in use, it tracks some driving behaviors and limits others. For example, the feature will mute the radio and any paired devices until seat belts are buckled, and it will give audible and visual warnings when the vehicle travels faster than preset speeds. All available active safety features, such as lane-departure warning and stability control, are automatically enabled and cannot be turned off by teen drivers.
Once teens return home, parents can then view what Chevy touts as an industry-first report card in the vehicle that offers information on the distance traveled, number of over-speed warnings and number of forward-collision alerts, among other data points. For now, that data must be viewed in the car, but it’d be easy to foresee a future when that data could be relayed from a vehicle’s telematics system to a parent’s smartphone app.
Motor-vehicle crashes remain the biggest killer of teens in America, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control, and Teen Driver addresses some of the factors most likely to lead to their deaths: Among male teens and young men ages 15 to 20 involved in fatal crashes in 2013, the CDC says 35 percent were speeding at the time of the crash. And teens of both genders have the lowest rate of seat-belt use of any age group, according to the government agency.
Drivers are most prone to crashes in their first months after receiving a license, and this month, there may be more first-time drivers on American roads than at any other point this year. August was the most popular birth month in the U.S. in the year 2000, with 360,080 births. Most states, though not all, permit drivers to receive their licenses at age 16. For their parents, more information on how they handle themselves on the road might be a welcome relief.
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