Truth About Driving. Sometimes the Difference between Life and Death for a Teen Is the...Follow an Anxious Leslie Nease as She Eases Her Child onto the Road.

Elizabeth Leland

By Elizabeth Leland
Charlotte (N.C.) Observer
Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005

Tega Cay, S.C. -- Leslie Nease's daughter was about to turn 16, impatient to get her driver's license, and Leslie was worried.

It's not that Stephanie isn't a good driver. She is. She sticks to the speed limit. She comes to a complete stop. She looks both ways.

The problem is that Stephanie is a teenager.

Remember when you were a teenager learning to drive and your mom or dad sat beside you, gasping and jamming the imaginary brake? Now it's Leslie's turn to gasp and jam.

Four million teenagers turn 16 next year, old enough to drive in most states. Maybe your child is one of them. If you aren't nervous when you hand over the keys to the car, you should be. Crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers.

Leslie talks with Stephanie about safe driving and warns her to watch out for the other guy, but Leslie knows Stephanie is thinking the same thing she thought when she was a teenager:

It won't happen to me.

On a Sunday afternoon two months before she turned 16, Stephanie slipped into the driver's seat of a little black car, her mother's 2005 Kia Spectra 5, nicknamed The Black Streak. Leslie sat beside her. Two of Stephanie's friends were in back. They were on their way home from Celebration Station.

"You want me to go on the highway?" Stephanie asked.

"I want you to go on the highway," Leslie said, and the firm way she said it, you knew they wouldn't be taking the back roads that day. Whenever Stephanie felt comfortable in one situation, Leslie threw her into another. First the back roads, then Gold Hill Road, now Interstate 77. Practice, practice, practice.

Stephanie looked left. Leslie looked left. Stephanie looked right, and Leslie looked right.

This is as big a deal for Leslie, who is 36, as it is for Stephanie. We may think of getting a driver's license as a rite of passage for a teenager. It's a rite of passage for parents, too. Their child is growing up, going out into the world, and the parents know the danger. For Leslie, the danger isn't hypothetical, it's real. Her college roommate died in a crash, and she wonders how a parent could cope with such a tragedy.

It doesn't seem so long ago that she brought Stephanie home from the hospital, the first of her four children, 8 pounds 12 ounces, brown hair, blue eyes. So many milestones in 16 years, the birthday parties, the skinned knees, the first days at school, the time Stephanie nearly died from chicken pox. And now. Now she's 5-foot-6, taller than her mother, and she's driving. Leslie knows it's time; Stephanie is ready to be more independent, and Leslie trusts her.

But that doesn't make it any easier.

Mom's rebellious youth

Being a mother is the most rewarding thing Leslie has ever done, and the hardest. She feels vulnerable, as if she wears her heart on the outside. She rarely worried before she had children; now there's always something to worry about. She looks back on her own teenage years and feels terrible for what she put her mother through.

Leslie was Joyce Cook's wild and reckless daughter, sassy and big-hearted, a cheerleader who climbed to the top of the pyramid and fell. Being popular and having boyfriends were more important to Leslie than straight A's.

They lived in Okinawa, where her stepfather was a Marine. In Japan, you couldn't drive until 18. When they moved back to the states in 1986, to Virginia Beach, Va., Leslie had two weeks to learn before leaving for college.

Leslie was not a good driver. She was accustomed to riding on the left side of the road in Okinawa and would invariably pull onto the wrong side in Virginia.

Somehow she passed the test.

Away at college, Leslie rebelled. She thought her parents told her not to smoke and drink and party because they didn't want her to have fun. Away from home, she could do what she liked, and Leslie liked to smoke and drink and party.

One day, her mother warned, you'll have a daughter just like you.

Stephanie is everything Leslie wasn't.

She's a straight-A student, quiet and dependable, with her father's easy-going personality. She dresses for comfort, not style, in baggy cargo shorts and big T-shirts with her long brown hair piled up beneath a black "Truckers for Jesus" cap. She's a rule follower, the responsible oldest child.

She could have applied for her license last year. Fifteen is the minimum age in South Carolina where they live; 16 in North Carolina. But her parents think 15 is too young. They let Stephanie get her learner's permit in January; she would have to wait until her 16th birthday in November to get her license.

Keeping up with the flow

Stephanie merged onto I-485.

"OK," Leslie told her, "you need to really kick butt. These people are going 65, and you're only going 45."

Stephanie pressed the pedal.

"Have you been on the ramp yet?" Leslie asked, looking ahead to the towering overpass that will take them to I-77.

"No "

"I wouldn't try to be a daredevil," Leslie warned, "because it's a lot of turning."

In the back seat, Stephanie's friends, twins Chet and Kyle Peterson, quit talking. "Everybody is silent," Stephanie said, and they laughed. "I've done worse, harder and scarier."

Stephanie navigated the ramp and merged onto 77, where an SUV pulled beside her and stayed. Leslie looked over. "Oh my gosh, it's Joey!" He's Stephanie's youth pastor, and he was trying to get her attention.

Leslie wagged her finger at him. "Don't you dare!" she said, though he couldn't hear her. "Stop it!" She was afraid he would distract Stephanie.

Stephanie never turned to look.

Dad, the calm teacher

The first three months Stephanie practiced driving, her father, Rod, rode with her. He banned Leslie from the car. You'll scare her, Rod warned, and Leslie didn't protest because she knew he was right.

If someone's driving unnerves her, Leslie has an annoying habit of gasping.

Uhhhhh! she'll cry.

Then: Watch out!

Leslie's mother does the same thing, and so do some of Leslie's friends, and their husbands all hate it. It startles the driver.

If you think you can do better, Rod will say, switch places.

Leslie fell in love with Rod in 1988, the summer her roommate died. Patty was driving home to see her parents one morning and her car ran off the road. She overcorrected. The car shot back, across two lanes and into another car. When Leslie got the call that Patty was dead, Patty's towel was still wet from her shower that morning.

Rod reached out to Leslie. I've been there, lost someone, he told her. His father was killed in a crash when Rod was 12, and Rod knew what to say to Leslie, what not to say. He was the only person she felt comfortable with talking about Patty.

"I know you're responsible," Leslie tells Stephanie, and she means it. "It's the other drivers I worry about."

Conflicting advice

Stephanie turned onto Gold Hill Road, and a car edged into her lane from a gas station.

"Whoa, buddy," Stephanie said, braking.

The car sped off, and Stephanie accelerated. Another car nosed out.

"Watch out, Steph!"

One of the first times Leslie rode with Stephanie, she told her to hug the centerline. Dad said to keep to the right.

Leslie insisted: Hug the centerline. Leslie avoids the outer edge of the road because of Patty. If Patty hadn't overcorrected, Leslie told Stephanie, she might still be alive.

Overcorrecting is a natural instinct. Your wheels go off the pavement, and a smooth ride becomes bumpy. Adrenaline sends a message to your brain as fast as the speed of light: Fix It!

That's the worst thing to do.

When you turn the steering wheel, it spins a shaft, which spins a pinion gear that moves a rack attached by a tie rod to the tires. After Patty jerked the steering wheel, her car swung to the left so fast she couldn't stop it.

You could drive to Florida with two wheels on the shoulder of the road. You have to train yourself to slow down, Leslie told Stephanie, then gently steer back onto the road.

It takes experience and maturity, which teenagers lack. They are four times more likely than older drivers to crash.

Especially boys.

Stephanie's brother, Tommy, is 13, three years away from getting his license, and already Leslie is talking with him about safe driving. She knows the stats: Two of every three teenagers killed in crashes are boys.

Next up: parking

They were almost home to Tega Cay when Leslie announced: "I want you to go into Lowe's parking lot."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to park, and I don't want you to go off by yourself."

Stephanie likes to pick a spot at the far end of a lot, away from other cars. It's easier.

"I can't."

"I want you to."

It takes practice to play the guitar. It takes practice to hit the softball. Squeezing a sporty hatchback into a 7-foot opening between two cars takes practice.

"All right," Leslie said, "stop and take a deep breath."

Stephanie pointed to a space. "Should I do that one?"

"Watch out for the pedestrian!"

Stephanie slowed the car. "How about right here?" Before Leslie could answer, Stephanie turned. Too late. If she kept going, she would hit the car on the left. She backed up. This time she pulled in. Stephanie and Leslie opened their doors and looked. There was about a foot of space on each side of Leslie's Kia. They knocked fists in a high five.

A few minutes later, Stephanie pulled into the driveway. Leslie sighed. She felt exhausted.

"OK."

Another sigh.

"I'm done. Now I can breathe."

Finally, the driver's test

Stephanie's 16th birthday finally came.

She finished a driver's education course the next day. That Friday, Nov. 18, Rod added Stephanie to their insurance - an extra $110 a month - and Leslie picked her up early from school.

Stephanie was pumped, ready to take the test. Leslie was nervous, but tried not to show it. As they walked into the DMV in York, S.C., she fought tears.

"Oh honey," Leslie said.

"What?"

"I love you."

They filled out paperwork, and then Stephanie drove off with a DMV examiner.

Stephanie aced the test.

"That makes my day!" she said and danced across the asphalt.

Back home, she was ready to drive by herself. Leslie said Stephanie could pick up her sisters, Kennedy, who is 7, and Peyton, 5, from a neighbor's house, a quarter-mile away.

Stephanie slipped into the driver's seat and hammed it up in her mother's sunglasses. Leslie watched from the front walk, again fighting back tears. It wasn't so long ago when Leslie was a teenager and her mother watched her drive away for the first time. Joyce Cook was so worried she drove behind Leslie the whole 275 miles to college in West Virginia.

Leslie was happy for Stephanie. She's becoming an independent young woman, and it's wonderful to see. The more Leslie rode with her, the more she realized how responsible Stephanie is. Tommy is her daredevil child. He'll be asking to drive in three years, and Leslie can't even think about it. That's a worry for another day.

Stephanie backed down the driveway.

Leslie was sad, too. Stephanie won't need me as much, Leslie thought. And this: I'm going to miss our time together in the car.

Stephanie drove out of sight, and there was no stopping the tears.

Leslie thought that being a mother is the hardest thing she's ever done. Letting go, she now realizes, is even harder.

Why Teenagers Take Risks

Why do teenagers speed when you've warned them not to? Why are they so impulsive? The part of the brain that controls risky behavior isn't fully formed until they're in their 20s. Teenagers' hormones are raging, encouraging them to do crazy things, and the decision-making part of their brains isn't checking them.

Sixty-two percent of deaths due to motor vehicle accidents are teenagers; they're four times more likely than older drivers to crash.

Two of every five teenagers who die in a crash, the leading cause of death among teens.

Two of every three teenagers killed in crashes are boys.

The chance of a 17-year-old being involved in a fatal crash increases 207% with 3 passengers in the car.

Meet Leslie Nease

On the Web: www.potentialunlimited.us.

What she's up to: Co-host: New Life 91.9 "Family Friendly Morning Show," (www.newlife919.com); writes monthly fitness column for The Lake Wylie Pilot and The Cabarrus Charlotte Connection; fitness instructor, Fort Mill and Gold Hill YMCA in Fort Mill, S.C.; Mrs. North Carolina 2001.

Her family: Husband, Rod Nease; children, Stephanie, 16; Tommy, 13; Kennedy, 7; Peyton, 5.

About Stephanie's driving: "It's a walk of faith. I remind myself that God loves her even more than I do." I decided to find this story after a colleague told me about her angst when she watched her teenage son drive away for the first time. I'll be there in four years.

Aug. 31, 2006: Writer at Charlotte Observer Wins Second Sifford Prize Elizabeth Leland, a reporter for the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, is the 2006 Darrell Sifford Memorial Prize in Journalism winner. The Missouri School of Journalism administers the prestigious award. Leland also won the Sifford Prize in 2001. [More]