My Teenage Years and Car Insurance

July 7, 2006 | By: | Comments (0) | Posted in: Auto

When I first began driving, I was probably like most teenagers that came before and after me, I had a feeling of invincibility behind the wheel. It is really difficult to explain, but a teenager behind the wheel of a vehicle for the first time is provided with a sense of freedom that most of us have never felt before. The story of my teenage driving saga goes like this:

• At age 15 ½, I began working and saving for a car
• A couple weeks before my 16th birthday I purchased a Ford Ranger
• On my 16th birthday, I went to the DMV, passed my test, and drove off with my license
• Within 3 months I had my first speeding ticket (85 mph in a 55 mph zone)
• Within 9 months I had 3 more tickets (left turn in a right turn only, rolling through a stop sign and 10 mph over the speed limit in a construction zone)
• By my 17th birthday I was back to riding my bike and relying on friends to get me around

The good news is that I didn’t hurt anyone during this time, but the lesson to me was clear, that although I was trying harder to be a safe driver, I was just too young and reckless to change my driving habits.

Like most teenage drivers, my parents added me to their auto insurance policy when I first started driving, and as an added bonus, they even paid for the premium! What I didn’t know was how my recklessness behind the wheel was going to impact them and their insurance. They had Farmers Insurance at the time, and after all this ensued, they were told by Farmers that their insurance premiums were going to skyrocket unless they excluded me as a driver on their policy. Needless to say, they excluded me from their policy, and it was years before I could ever drive one of their vehicles again.

By the time I got my license back, I was on my own for getting auto insurance, and back before the Internet and InsWeb, we used the phone book to find an insurance agent. After finding an agent that would insure me, I ended up spending over $200 a month (that I really couldn’t afford) for the most basic coverage I could get. All of this was just for the privilege of driving my truck on a daily basis.

Now you might think that the story ends there, but in fact there is one more chapter. While I did clean up my act and was able to refrain from getting tickets, it doesn’t mean that my judgment got that much better. When I was 18, I was driving home late one night, and fell asleep at the wheel. There was no alcohol or drugs involved, I was just driving too late at night, and I didn’t heed the warning signs that my body was telling me. I drove off of the road into a field and landed upside down in a foot of water. Luckily, I walked away from the incident, and no one else was injured. This time, my truck was totaled, and although I still had a license, I had nothing to drive. This time around, I spent an awful long time riding my bike and catching rides from my friends.

While you may not be able to prevent your teenage driver from making bad driving decisions (Lord knows I would have never listened to my parents), you can learn more about ways to promote safe driving with your teenage driver in the InsWeb special report “Teens Behind The Wheel”

 

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