Teens with ADHD

Is Your Teen Ready to Drive? How to Tell — and Rules to Encourage Safe Driving

How can you tell if your teen with ADHD is ready to independently get behind the wheel? What are the best apps for tracking teenage drivers? Here are questions to ask yourself and guidelines for encouraging safe driving, from driving agreements to installing third-party driving safety apps.

By Annie Artiga Garner, Ph.D. Verified Updated on July 12, 2024
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Your teen is counting down the days until they can finally get in the driver’s seat — a moment you’re probably (all right, definitely) dreading. You want your teen to be independent, but you also know the risks young drivers face on the road, especially when they have ADHD. Delaying your teen’s driver education has crossed your mind, but you’re unsure if this is the way to go. How can you tell if your teen is ready to pursue a permit — or even a full license?

Or perhaps your teen is the one who dreads the idea of driving. Maybe they have no interest at all in getting behind the wheel – and you wonder if you should be pushing them towards greater independence.

Ultimately, decisions around your teen’s driving are highly personal and hinge on your family’s unique circumstances. Learning the facts about ADHD’s impact on driving and the research-backed factors that encourage safe driving in teens can help you weigh the pros and cons, and confidently come to a decision around your teen’s driving.

How ADHD Impacts Teen Drivers

ADHD’s impact on driving is well-studied.

  • An ADHD diagnosis doubles the risk of motor vehicle crashes among teen drivers.1
  • Teens with ADHD report more fines, points on their driver’s license, and remedial driving classes than do teens without ADHD.2
  • Newly licensed teens with ADHD are 3.6 times more likely to drive under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs than are teens without ADHD.3

The following factors — individual, relational, and environmental — also increase and decrease risk for driving problems in teens.

[Read: “Should I Let My ADHD Teen Take the Wheel?”]

Driving Problems in Teens: Factors That Increase Risk4 Driving Safety: Factors That Protect Teens4 5
  • Rule-breaking behaviors (as seen in oppositional defiant disorder) and having friends who also break rules
  • A diagnosis of depression, autism, or anxiety
  • Low parental monitoring (i.e., not often knowing your teen’s whereabouts and who they’re with)
  • High levels of parental stress (which may impair monitoring)
  • Monotonous roads (i.e., highway driving, driving in rural areas, and other “boring” driving situations)
  • Distractions, which can be especially risk for teens with ADHD. Glancing away from the road for more than 2 seconds is linked to greater risk for lane departures, crashes, and near-crashes.8
  • Use of automated driving systems, as they lead to longer glances away from the road and reduce hazard anticipation, or a driver’s ability to foresee where there might be a driving safety problem ahead9 10
  • Driving while on stimulant medication is proven to improve the driving abilities of individuals with ADHD and reduce crash risk
  • Having a strong parent-teen relationship as well as parents with low stress levels
  • Parental modeling of road safety, including parent-established limits for safe driving
  • Engaging driving environments, like city/urban environments where there’s lots of stop-and-go to keep drivers attentive
  • Driving a manual transmission vehicle, which requires more engagement than driving an automatic car

Is Your Teen Ready to Hit the Road?

Not all teens with ADHD are problem drivers or will experience driving problems. Yes, as a group, teens with ADHD are more likely to experience driving difficulties. But at an individual level, these problems may not apply. Simply put, risk of problematic driving is probabilistic, not deterministic.

While weighing the factors above, use the following pointers to help you navigate decisions around your teen getting a permit or a license.

  • The permit stage is important for teen drivers, as it allows them to gain driving practice in a safer context.11 During the permit stage, state laws regulate how many peers can be in the car, cell phone use while driving, and times driving is allowed, among other possible restrictions. Depending on your state, your teen might miss out on this valuable stage of driving practice if you wait too long to expose them to driving; older learners may “age out” of restrictions designed to enhance driver safety.

[Read: Safety Behind The Wheel with ADHD]

  • Should my teen wait to pursue a full driver’s license? “Yes” answers to the following questions indicate that your teen is not ready for this privilege and that you should take time to address these challenges first:
    • Do I have a hard time setting and enforcing limits?
    • Does my teen break rules often?
    • Does my teen hang out with teens who break rules often?
    • Does my teen make not-so-good decisions in high-risk/high-reward situations?

Safe Driving for Teens with ADHD: Prioritizing Road Safety

Steer your teen toward safe driving with the following tips and strategies.

1. Talk to your teen about how ADHD may impact their driving. The goal isn’t to frighten your child, but to help them understand the risks and how their unique symptoms may impact their safety on the road.

2. Ensure that your teen only drives while actively medicated. That may mean waiting until the medication has kicked in to grab the car keys, or possibly taking an additional dose to extend the medication’s coverage. Either way, talk to your pediatrician about ensuring your teen is covered while driving, and make sure your teen understands the importance of driving while medicated.

3. Lead by example. Call your child’s attention to the steps you take to be a safe driver. While getting in the car, for example, you can say out loud, “I’m going to silence my phone and put it away, so I’m not distracted.”

4. Work up to complex driving situations. Get your teen behind the wheel in simple, quiet environments during the daytime and in clear weather conditions first. Once they’re comfortable, build them up to busy intersections and urban driving. Remember, there’s no such thing as too much practice.

Use this teen driving plan tool from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to log and rate your teen’s driving performance during practice drives. You can also use the tool to log the situations and events that seem to distract your child or cause a dip in their driving performance to build your child’s awareness of their skills and areas for improvement.

5. Set clear limits with a driving contract. Driving contracts are excellent tools for enforcing safe driving. From no cell phone use while driving and passenger limits to curfews and zero-tolerance policies around driving after taking substances, your contract should leave no doubt about what you expect from your teen and the consequences for breaking agreed-upon rules. Use this free template from ADDitude to build your own driving contract. If communication challenges interfere with setting up a contract, consider working with a therapist who can bridge the gap.

6. Losing your cool while teaching your teen the ropes? If it’s difficult for you to remain positive, supportive, and calm with your teen in the driver’s seat, bring in a professional driving instructor or another trusted adult to teach your child.

7. Use tracking and safety apps to monitor your teen’s driving. Life360 (on iOS and Android) provides safety reports with information on your teen’s driving, from their speed and location to phone usage. (Cost: free; in-app purchases and memberships available.) Other apps and tools to consider:

  • FamiSafe (iOS and Android; plans starting at $10.99)
  • Bouncie device (iOS and Android; $89.99 one-time device charge; $9 monthly subscription)

8. Review and practice what to do in emergency situations. Prepare your teen for things that are very likely to happen on the road, like fender benders. Remind your child that you will always be there to help if something goes wrong. Say, “When in doubt, pull over, take a moment, call us, and we’ll help you through it.”

Safe Driving for Teens with ADHD: Next Steps

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude webinar titled, “Teen Driving Rules: ADHD Guardrails to Avoid Distractions and Accidents” [Video Replay & Podcast #455] with Annie Artiga Garner, Ph.D., which was broadcast on May 18, 2023.

 

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