{"id":880,"date":"2011-04-28T14:24:11","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T04:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=880"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:56:25","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:56:25","slug":"before-you-hand-your-teenager-the-car-keys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/home\/before-you-hand-your-teenager-the-car-keys\/","title":{"rendered":"Before You Hand Your Teenager the Car Keys"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s a big moment in anybody\u2019s life when they first get handed the keys to the family car.\u00a0 How well I remember my first drive in the family\u2019s VW Beetle… It\u2019s also a big moment for parents when they put their teenager in the driver\u2019s seat of the car and let them head out onto the road for the first time.<\/p>\n

While your teenager is on their L licence, everyone in the family knows their roles and responsibilities: your teenager isn\u2019t allowed to drive unless there\u2019s an experienced driver in the car with them (preferably in the front passenger seat) as they clock up the hours in their log book.\u00a0 The only debate that might crop up at this stage is who counts as an \u201cexperienced driver\u201d \u2013 your teenager might try to convince you that their best friend\u2019s big brother counts.\u00a0 But it\u2019s when your teenager gets their P licence and can drive solo that you need to set some family rules.<\/p>\n

First of all, congratulate your teenager on passing.\u00a0 It\u2019s big achievement for them, and it\u2019s important to focus on this positive before getting into the more controversial stuff and the rules.\u00a0 They\u2019re another step closer to being a fully independent adult! (Try to forget that time when they were four and rode their bike straight into the only tree in an open space).<\/p>\n

Many of the rules and restrictions are already spelled out by law.\u00a0 These will govern the sort of car your teen is allowed to drive with P-plates (if you\u2019re not sure whether your teenager is allowed to drive your family Holden Commodore, to take one example, have a look at this VicRoads database<\/a>. It saves a lot of arguments). The peer passenger restriction also makes it strictly illegal for your teen to cart their friends around unless someone over the age of 23 is in the car.\u00a0 (Note: the rules in this paragraph apply to the state of Victoria; other states have other rules, but they\u2019re all pretty similar).\u00a0 The important thing for parents here is to be sticklers and enforce the laws of the land strictly.<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve got to set some family restrictions.\u00a0 Being able to drive solo is a huge responsibility and gives a larger measure of freedom to your teenager.\u00a0 It\u2019s highly likely that your teenager is driving the family car rather than their own, and as your name is on the ownership papers and you have to pay for things like the insurance and all the rest of it, you get a say in how the car gets used.\u00a0 The exact rules that your family sets will be unique to your situation, but it is probably a good idea to discuss the following points and make the rules clear:<\/p>\n

Who pays for the petrol?\u00a0 And who is responsible for getting the car topped up? \u00a0Does your teen have to do any of the car maintenance that you can do at home (rotating tyres, checking and topping up the oil, etc.)? Who pays for any repairs if your teen has a ding?<\/p>\n

What responsibilities come with the privilege of using the family car?\u00a0 For example, if your teen is allowed to drive to school, do they have to take younger siblings? (If the answer to this is yes, it might pay to have a talk with the younger sibling about acceptable behaviour when Big Brother\/Sister is behind the wheel).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will the car keys and the ability to drive be granted automatically to your teenager? Or do parents have the ability to withhold driving privileges if, for example, your teenager has been behaving badly at school?<\/p>\n

What will be the consequences of violating the legal rules (whether or not your teenager gets caught by the cops)? What about violating family rules?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t make this conversation too heavy. \u00a0Remember to begin and end this conversation with congratulations and a positive attitude. http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymyi.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a big moment in anybody\u2019s life when they first get handed the keys to the family car.\u00a0 How well I remember my first drive in the family\u2019s VW Beetle… It\u2019s also a big moment for parents when they put their teenager in the driver\u2019s seat of the car and let them head out onto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12479,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions\/12479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}