Parents who make use of a smartphone app instead of the traditional pen and paper system to supervise their teen children’s mandatory practice driving hours could be helping the driver avoid car accidents and stay safe on the road. Due to their limited experience, teen driver’s are more likely to be involved in an auto accident.
A new study focuses on the effectiveness of smartphone apps used to track teenage motorists’ supervised driving hours as part of their mandatory GDL requirements, and compares the effectiveness of these apps with logs using pen and paper. In Georgia, like in most other states, teenagers must complete several hours of supervised driving before they are eligible to get learners’ permits. Under Georgia law, a novice driver who is at least 15 years of age must first obtain an instructional permit that allows him or her to drive under the supervision of a licensed motorist who is at least 21 years of age. In many cases, parents act as the driving supervisors for their children. It is only after this supervised driving phase has been completed that a person can appear for an intermediate license.
Needless to say, these hours of supervised driving are critically important to the teen driver. Not only do they allow her or him to practice driving safely under the supervision of a parent, but also allow parents to foster the kind of driving behavior that they want their child to practice when they are driving on their own, in order to avoid car accidents.
Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health compared the driving records of 150 parent-teen pairs who used a smartphone app to record the supervised driving hours and practice trips completed with another group of 130 teen-parent duos who were using pen and paper to log their practice driving hours. The subjects were monitored over a period of six months.
The researchers noticed that the biggest difference was that there was greater accuracy in the results of the parents who used smartphone apps because they were required to log on to the app as soon as they began driving and log off as soon as the practice was completed. Errors were more likely to be made when parents used pen and paper to log the number of hours driven for the day.
The researchers believe that in the future, smartphone apps that track supervised driving and other features could become a part of graduated drivers licensing requirements in states across the country. They also believe that the data collected through these apps could be used to predict risky driving behavior in the future.
The Atlanta car crash attorneys at Katz Personal Injury Lawyers are dedicated to the representation of persons injured in car accidents in the metro Atlanta region and across Georgia. If you or a loved one have suffered injuries in a car accident, talk to a lawyer at our firm and determine if you have legal options to a claim for damages. You may be eligible for compensation that includes medical expenses, lost income and other types of damages. Talk to an attorney at our firm and discuss your case.