Parents More Powerful In Driving Restrictions: Study

While there are officers on the road, it is revealed that parents have demonstrated stronger potential in reinforcing driving rules and regulations.

According to QUT Center for Accident Research and Road Safety's Dr. Alexia Lennon, as cited by Phys, a small scale study of parents and young drivers in Queensland found that those who were beginning to drive had better compliance with the Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) system, with the encouragement from their parents, as opposed to police officers.

In a statement, as cited by the publication, Lennon said that the most important question was whether the parents knew all the restrictions of the licensing system. She followed-up that the concern on how parents guided their children to be safe on the road, if they were not familiar with the said restrictions.

Lennon found that the perception of both the parents and the young drivers were critical to the latter's compliance on the road. In a statement, she said that parents had restricted their teenager to have only one passenger in the car after 10 p.m. while young drivers revealed that they were very sensitive to their parents' stands and that they would be disappointed if they found out that they had violated a driving rule.

As per Science Daily, Lennon also revealed that the GDL system aimed to address road safety by keeping new drivers from being exposed to high-risk situations, while letting them have an actual driving experience on the road. She added that parental support was a vital angle of the novice drivers' application of what they learned from Queensland's GDL program. Parents should read more on Jacoby and Myers Personal Injury Attorney's deadliest mistakes that teen drivers make for more information. 

In line with future study objectives, Lennon revealed that the project's next phase would involve an online survey, which aims to identify and scrutinize the effectiveness of what parents do to encourage their children to comply with the driving rules.

Know more on safety for young drivers in the video below.