2 of 17

Write now Article Tools

Good Cars For Teen Drivers

The scariest day of my life was the day my 16 year old daughter got her driver's license. Her schedule and mine being what they were extremely busy there was no question but that she would need a car. So I set out upon the most important, intensive, exhaustive research project in my life finding a car that would save her from her lack of experience and her youthful sense of immortality. Luckily, my research panned out; the vehicle I bought her saved her life when she slid off the road at 40 miles an hour, passing some "old guy" who was only going "15 miles an hour". Turns out the "old guy" knew something she didn't black ice is just as slippery as the regular stuff.

I started my research by looking for cars with the highest safety rating. I wanted my kid to have the highest rated vehicle in existence. I soon ran into the limitations of this approach, however: safety ratings apply only within "classes" of cars. Compact, for example, or Luxury. Common sense told me that the highest rated compact car was not going to provide her adequate protection. So, I narrowed my research to "full-size" vehicles, and incorporated research into deaths-per-hundred thousand (DP100k) registered vehicles. This approach yielded a better result, but still presented many dilemmas. It turns out that better selling cars have better DP100k statistics simply by dint of the law of averages. Many cars with low dp100k stats turn out to have unexpectedly high serious injuries-per-hundred-thousand registered vehicles. Most surprisingly, cars with the highest safety ratings did not necessarily have the lowest DP100k statistics.

Still more research revealed a simple reason for the anomaly between safety ratings and DP100k stats: Safety ratings are based on very specific calculations that don't always take into account the inherent trade-offs between injury and death. Car X may have a 4 star rating, for example, because its crumple zone invades the driver's leg space. That same crumple zone, though, may prevent impact invasion into the driver's torso space an invasion far more likely than the former to cause death or serious injury. It was at this point in my research that I finally realized that there was no "perfect" car and developed a short list of criteria that any car I purchased must meet:

1. It must have driver-side airbags. Airbags greatly reduce deaths in head-on impacts.

2. It must have good pickup, but must not be a "sports" car. Sports cars have the highest DP100k among teens.

3. It must have anti-lock brakes. Inexperienced drivers have exceptionally poor braking response time and the need to "pump" only worsens it.

4. It must be large. In an accident, all else being equal, the larger the car is, the less likely its occupants are to be injured or killed.

5. It must not be an SUV. SUVs are built on truck frames and don't have the same safety requirements as other passenger vehicles.

6. It must have 4 or 5 star driver-side ratings for all safety tests. Cars with 5 star ratings in all tests are few and far between, and as I learned, a 4 star rating is sometimes preferable to a 5.

Using this short list as my guide, I narrowed the field down to a manageable few models, and finally purchased a 1994 Cadillac Sedan Deville, paying $2,200.00 and earning its weight in gold. In her accident, my daughter actually managed to launch the car airborne (as evidenced by lack of tracks in the snow). Not only did she and her passenger come out unscathed; the only damage the car suffered was to its tires.

Learn more about this author, Lynn Herrick.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Good cars for teen drivers?
We want to hear your view. Write now!