When you are a parent, having your child begin to drive may seem like a blessing – no longer do you have to wait eagerly for the phone to ring so you can resume your voluntary personal chauffeur service.
But, once this joy of gaining your Friday nights back passes, you may be left with a small sense of anxiety – perhaps you can remember how nervous you were to complete your first solo drive? Or how scared you were to have so much responsibility at their age?
It’s only human to feel a little scared of your own child going out on their own and gaining a whole new sense of freedom and responsibility. You have probably imparted your own wisdom and tips to your child, but will they listen?
How can you make sure they stay safe?
Well much of this comes down to a mutual understanding and trust in one another. But in recent years, there has been a upsurge in ‘Safe Driving Contracts’ to help ensure you have a mutual understanding with your newly-qualified child about what they can/cannot do with their car.
What exactly is a Safe Driving Contract?
Owning a car is not cheap – between fuel costs, repairs and MOT bills, your car can cost you a small fortune.
This often means that parents have to put on their cape and come to the rescue (normally more than once) to help offset some, or all of the costs to help their child.
But when they do get their own car, or use the family wagon, how can you keep your child safe behind the wheel when you aren’t with them?
It’s exactly what it says on the tin – a contractual agreement which lays out certain conditions for your child for their first year of driving, as a direct result of you helping them financially.
Don’t worry, these aren’t legally binding, but it does allow you to have an open conversation about what they can and cannot do when they are driving (i.e. putting their phone safely out of reach), and some suitable penalties if they break the rules (i.e. not allowed to drive for a week).
Where can I get a Safe Driving Contract?
Luckily, we have created a contract, which you can easily print off at home.
For our Safe Driving Contract, please click here.
How can we help?
Here at insurethebox, we allow customers to monitor their driving behaviour by installing a black box in their car.
To help keep your child safe, supplementary to having a written Safe Driving Contract, you can ask your child to show you how they are driving via our online portal, fed with data from the black box, to see how they’re doing based on scores (red, amber or green) for key areas of safe driving.
We always try to encourage safe driving – drivers demonstrating good driving behaviour earn up to 100 Bonus Miles each month. These Bonus Miles are used to calculate a personalised renewal price – so, if you are an insurethebox customer, safe driving might not only save lives but also reduce costs.