Many teenage injuries in emergency rooms are due to preventable car accidents. Overall, teenage drivers drive faster and ride closer to the bumper in front of them than older drivers. Teenagers also are less likely to wear seatbelts then anybody else.<\/p>\n
Chevrolet has announced that it will offer parents a creepy level of oversight when it comes to letting the kids borrow the family ride, and the NSA-style spying begins with the\u00a02016 Malibu. A system dubbed Teen Driver will debut on the bow-tie brand\u2019s newest mid-size sedan (which itself bows at the\u00a02015 New York auto show). It allows parents to set speed alerts, limit audio volume, and even receive vehicle reports \u201cso parents could use it as a teaching tool with their kids\u2014they can discuss and reinforce safe driving habits.\u201d Um,\u00a0who\u2019s ever heard of a productive, teachable conversation with a teenager?<\/p>\n
Anyway, like Ford\u2019s MyKey system (both current and\u00a0future), Teen Driver lets parents with a Jason Bourne complex program speed warnings that flash when their child exceeds a preset velocity\u00a0(from 40 to 75 mph) and set sound-system volume limits. Parents can also pull customizable reports full of juicy stuff, such as distance driven, top speed achieved, preset-speed warnings exceeded, stability-control events, anti-lock brake events, and forward-collision alerts and auto-braking events\u2014on vehicles equipped with those systems.<\/p>\n
Wily teens might just shut off stability control, traction control, and the like, but a PIN-protected menu enables parents to dictate just what\u00a0features can or cannot be deactivated. In that way, control over the activation status of stability control, parking sensors, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, forward-collision warning, automatic braking, daytime running lights, and traction control can all be wrested from your little speed junkie.<\/p>\n