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When your teenager starts approaching driving age, chances are you are going to want to buy them a car. But before you go out and buy them the cheapest, biggest, oldest car you can find, you are going to want to read this.

What Type of Car for Teen Driving?

While it is tempting to just get a cheap car so you don’t have to worry about your teenager damaging it, the better approach is to buy them a nicer car with the best safety features. After all, with the right safety features on board, your teenager’s chance of crashing goes down (a good driving school helps, too).

As the New York Times points out, safety technology in cars has come a long way in recent years. Cars from 10 years ago just don’t offer your children the same protection as a car that was built in the past few years. The main reason teenagers crash is simply because of their inexperience, and newer cars provide an extra set of eyes and ears on the road. With features like blind spot monitoring, automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, and lane change alerts, newer cars can do a lot to prevent an accident that would have occurred otherwise.

Which Car to Buy?

While newer cars are undoubtedly safer, they also cost a lot more, and many families cannot afford all of the latest features—especially because most of them do not come standard. However, you should still buy the most safety features you can afford, and you don’t have to only look at brand new cars. Even used cars from the past few years can provide your teenage driver with the extra level of protection you are looking for.

When looking for used cars, try not to go any further back than 2012 if possible. This is the year that electronic stability control became required on all vehicles. It allows each wheel to be controlled independently, and it does a tremendous job at managing swerves and skids on the road. If you have to pick and choose between features, choose ones that are geared towards safety versus ones that are simply for aesthetics. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is a good resource for looking at the best used cars for teen driving in CT.

It is also important to note that many car manufacturers have the same features, but they call them different names. As a parent, you need to do the research to make sure you are getting the safety features that are the most important to you.

You would do anything for your kids, so when it comes to teen driving, get them a car that will help protect them as they learn how to master the ways of the road. To learn more about what safety features to look for in a car, contact our teen driving school in Connecticut today.

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