Chuck,

Unfortunately, Mass Transit sucks in my area. There are very few sidewalks,
so riding a bike outside of the neighborhood is very rarely seen. The
parents run the kids up to the mall, to the movies, to friends and to
school functions etc. What surprised by my wife and myself with the other
kids, is that the kids had no idea how to get from point A to point B, even
though they had been driven there for years. It seems that their mind was
in another world. That might be why they never responded as we talked to
them.

When I give my wife my input on the idea of a Tom-Tom for the car, I am sure
she will ask her friends. I am also certain they will agree with the
consensus of rec.boats. It also shows what a great job Tom-Tom is doing
with marketing. My wife is not a techno guru, but she thought it was the
best thing since sliced bread.




wrote in message
oups.com...

JimH wrote:
"Lord Reginald Smithers" Ask me about my driveway leading up to my
manor.
wrote in message . ..
Our youngest daughter will be turning 16 in Jan. My wife wants to give
her a GPS unit for the car. My wife's logic is she would be a safer
driver, if she didn't knew where she was going, and was not looking for
street names and addresses.

It seems to me that another electronic toy in the car is just another
thing to distract her from watching the road.

Does anyone have any experience with GPS and teenagers?

and

Most importantly, does anyone have any experience buying a handheld
unit
that has both maps for city driving and nautical charts?




I agree with all the advice Doug has offered.

We had a rule with our kids just after they got their license..........no
more than one friend in the car at any time. Statistics show that the
frequency of accidents increases when a new driver has more than one
friend
in the car. The more kids in the car.........the more distractions.

Our other rule was no talking on the cell phone when driving.

Speaking of cell phones.....you may want to consider getting her one if
she
does not already have one. If she has her own car a membership to AAA is
also a good idea.

Regarding insurance premiums for boys vs. girls..........our experience
is
that the premium is *much* higher on boys than girls.


Washington has a special license for young drivers. I may have a few of
the details fuzzy, but in general it works like this: If you get your
license at 16, you cannot drive with another
person under 21 in the car for the first several months. They may also
be some restriction about driving after dark- or at least in the wee
hours of the morning. After the proscribed time period elapses without
ticket, accident, or being caught with other kids in the car the
licensee "graduates" to a full fledged, unrestricted driver's license.
Makes all the sense in the world to me- they put they kids through
driver's ed and have them drive a circle around
the neighborhood cul-de-sac. It's a long way from those back road,
suburban experiences to the bumper-to-bumper at 70mph horn blaring, no
turn signalling, finger waving, high beam flashing reality of the
freeways these days. Kids, as well as the rest of us, need to
concentrate on the road. Hang up and drive.

It's interesting that some insurance companies are now charging more
for girls than for boys. Maybe in the era of hot rods and muscle cars
the boys tended to engage in more dangerous behavior, but in the era of
cell phones the girls are now so distracted they aren't driving as
carefully as they should?

GPS for a kid? Where in the sam heck are they going with the car that
they wouldn't have been able to walk, take a bus, or ride a bike last
year, (and without GPS), before they were a driver? :-)