Teach Your Teens How to Drive Around Bicycles

Seth Smiley here from the Smiley Law Firm with today’s edition of the Parents of Teen Drivers Facebook Group. Today’s topic is something important to consider, “Teach your teens how to drive around bicycles.” Some of our teen drivers will still ride their bicycles, so it is doubly important that we teach them the proper awareness regarding safety around bikes when they are driving or riding.Bikes on the road is always a dangerous proposition. We can do more to remind everyone to avoid a horrible accident!

We recently had a case at the law firm where we had a cyclist that was on the road on a bright and sunny morning. There was a teen driver with another teenage passenger, and the cyclist veered out into the road. It was a legal maneuver as there was no sidewalk, and bicyclists are considered part of the road. In this situation, we have to treat cyclists as a vehicle, which is something many teen drivers are not aware of or follow.

The teen proceeded to go ahead, didn’t see the person that well, and boom hit the cyclist! The accident caused a lot of damage to the bike rider, and the teen driver was at fault. It is a perfect example of something that, as a parent of a teen driver, you want to make sure that you are educating your teen about it. They have to look out for pedestrians and cyclists at all times. Pedestrians in crosswalks are especially important, as they will always be at fault if they hit someone in that situation.

Bicyclists should always be considered a part of the road, so we need to ensure that they are being treated as such. If you end up hitting them and they’re abiding by the law, it’s going to be the automobile driver’s fault. We want to make sure that you are telling your teen how to protect themselves when they’re on the road when dealing with people on bicycles. Tell those teens to watch out for bicyclists, and when they are on a bike to watch out for cars because when it is a car and a bike, the car always wins!

There is some interesting information available at the bikeeasy.org website. It goes through some of the relevant laws and gives some tips about safety for both cyclists and drivers. It is well worth reading as much information as possible as cyclists are so vulnerable to accidents and your teen driver can get into a huge amount of trouble, just because they are not sufficiently informed. Taking extra care around cyclists needs to become normal behavior, and it will save lives!

Here at the Smiley Law Firm, we love to hear feedback about your experiences improving teen drivers’ safety. If you have any interesting ideas or stories about today’s topic of “Teach your teens how to drive around bicycles,” please let us know in the comment section.