You watch your teen bound out of the door every day, car keys in hand, loving the new independence that a drivers license brings. But you can’t help but worry. You know you can’t shelter your teen from every driving risk they face, but you still want to make sure your young driver is as protected as possible.
While parents can’t remove every risk from their children’s path, they can help to encourage good driving habits. And one of the most dangerous habits that teens are susceptible to involve their cell phones. But how can you control that, short of confiscating phones!? Luckily, today there are many apps available to help minimize the risks of distracted driving and the temptation of cell phones while driving.
Disabling Texts Apps
Texting is as disorientating as driving intoxicated, but luckily there are apps out there that can disable your teen’s ability to read or send texts while they are in a moving car. Key2SafeDriving and TextArrest are two examples. Some apps, like Drivesafe.ly Pro speak texts aloud and allow your teen to speak an auto response that the device sends on its own.
Riding Shotgun Apps
Anxious parents may wish they could monitor their teen while they drive on their own, and now you can! The Safe Driver app can send a text message to you every time your teen passes the speed limit in a given area. While this certainly helps you monitor your teen, it might also be the push your child needs to stay alert about the speed limit and avoiding accidents when they drive.
Phone Call Restrictive Apps
Sometimes taking a call, making a call, or even just talking on a cell phone can be enough to distract your teen from driving safely. The apps ZoomSafer and Key2SafeDriving can lock and prevent your teen’s access to their phone’s calling feature while they drive.
Educational Apps
Some apps can actually help teach your teen on how to drive safely, provide different tips, and react correctly to dangerous situations. The Dangers of Distracted Driving app demonstrates to teens how quickly accidents can happen while driving distracted. To give kids an interactive lesson in safe driving practices that they can apply when they drive, there’s The Steer Clear Mobile app.
There are plenty of apps coming out that can help your teen be a safer, more accountable driver. Be sure to check that your teen isn’t downloading apps that distracting your teen even more than they might already be. These apps can be an enormous sigh of relief for worried parents with new teen drivers.
There will always be risks that go along with driving. But do yourself a favor – your teens may have newfound independence, but you can still have peace of mind.
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