It is time for your teen to begin driving. Your child is ready, but are you ready?

The first year of driving is the most important year of driving for your teenager. The participation of parents can make a positive difference. Younger drivers are in a greater number of crashes than other age groups. The crashes that involve teens also tend to be more serious than crashes that involve only drivers in other age groups. The statistics below about younger drivers age 16 to 24 are not provided to alarm parents, but to alert parents:

• Drivers ages 16-24 represent 12% of the licensed drivers in New York State, but represent 20% of the drivers involved in crashes.
• 32% of all fatalities in the years 2004 through 2006 occurred in crashes that involved younger drivers.
• Younger drivers involved in fatal and personal injury crashes are twice as likely as all drivers in such crashes to have unsafe speed reported as a factor that contributed to the accident.
• Fatal and personal injury crashes that involve younger drivers are more likely to involve more than one vehicle than all the fatal and personal injury crashes.

As a parent, you can have a positive impact through knowledge of the New York State Graduated Driver License (GDL) law. You can contribute to the driving safety of your teen if you:

• Accurately certify that your teen has had the required hours of practice driving with you as required by the GDL law.
• Sign a parent and teen driving contract (pdf).
• Enroll in the TEENS (Teen Electronic Event Notification Service) program.
• Know when you must withdraw your consent of driving privileges if your teenager is not ready for the responsibility of driving.

Before your teen can take the road test, they must complete at least 50 hours of practice driving, with at least 15 hours at night (after sunset) with a parent, guardian or driving instructor. The parent, guardian or instructor must certify the supervised practice driving on a Certification of Supervised Driving (pdf) (MV-262). Form MV-262 must be given to the DMV license examiner each time your teen takes their road test.

As a parent or guardian you may need to decide whether or not to allow your teen to continue driving. The teen may demonstrate driving behavior that is not safe. The teen may not yet have the maturity to handle driving responsibility.

Regardless of the reason, you can withdraw your consent for driving privileges if your teen is:

• under age 18, and
• has a driver license with a Class designation that includes the letter "J" (junior), for example "DJ" or "MJ".

Note: a driver can qualify for a driver license that is not a junior driver license at age 17 with the completion of Driver Education. You cannot withdraw consent for a driver age 17 who has received a license without a license class designation that includes the letter "J".

To withdraw consent, complete and send to DMV form Withdrawal of Consent (pdf) (MV-1W).

The Teen Electronic Event Notification Service (TEENS) is a parental notification program that notifies the parent(s) of a driver under age 18 when specific events are added to the driver record of the teen. The events include tickets, traffic violation convictions, driver license suspensions, and certain accidents. By being informed of these events, parents can take an active role in the development of safe driving behaviors by their children. Also, this program helps parents be aware of any potentially risky habits which develop during the early driving career of their teenager.