If your teen is now driving on their own, it can be extremely stress-inducing for you as a parent. If your teen is ever involved in a car accident, it can lead to expensive hikes in the price of your insurance, and that’s the best-case scenario.

An accident can cause serious injuries, and the severity of accidents involving teens is often greater than other age groups.

Rather than dealing with the fall-out of an accident, it’s better to proactively prevent them. One way you can do this is by using available technology to help teens stay safer behind the wheel, including the following:

Car Technology

If you have the ability to get your teen a new car, while it’s a big expense, it can actually be safer.

New cars have a lot of built-in technology to make drivers safer and more aware of what’s going on around them.

For example, there’s the MyKey system from Ford. Parents can create custom settings to enforce safe driving habits. Using the MyKey system, you can set it up so that your teen’s speakers stay muted until they buckle their seatbelt, and there are speed cutoffs so the vehicle won’t go above a certain limit.

Chevrolet offers similar technology on some vehicles and even the option to access an in-vehicle driving report.

Other major manufacturers are currently experimenting with similar safe driving technology.

TrueMotion Family

TrueMotion Family uses technology to reduce distracted driving. It’s a free app that provides a full picture of your family’s driving and whether or not they’re being safe. It’s the only app that will tell you where your family members are and how they got there.

It will also tell you if your teen is driving responsibly. For example, it tracks whether your teen is texting or using their phone while they’re behind the wheel.

It scores and ranks every driver in the family and shares the information with everyone who’s signed up in the system, so even though it’s some of the best technology for safer drivers, there’s also a fun game-like element of competition with it.

Car trips are graded using a 100-point scale.

Also, high-risk behaviors are called out in the app, such as going at high speeds.

EverDrive

EverDrive is a free app that turns a smartphone into a safe driving tool.

You download the app, and then it passively monitors your driving habit. Later, diagnostics are compiled so you, as the parent, can review them.

The app gathers speed, device screen time, time of day, vehicle location, and rotational movement.

Data isn’t collected continuously. It’s only collected when there’s significant movement indicating driving.

The data collected and analyzed is used to create an overall driving score out of 100. Things that you do to avoid a low score and raise your score include going the speed limit, avoiding fast acceleration, and not using the phone while behind the wheel.

The GPS on the user’s phone measures traveling speed.

You can use your scores on EverDrive to get discounts on insurance.

RoadReady

The RoadReady app is free, and you can track your teen’s driving with this as well. There’s also the Parent’s Supervised Driving Program, which is an add-on to the RoadReady app that lets you track supervised driving time.

With the RoadReady App, along with tracking your time and learning how to drive safely, you can track driving conditions and set goals. Receive parental tips, and measure how well you’re meeting your goals.

Parents can use the app to identify areas where their teen needs to improve and to track their teen’s progress.

CellControlDriveID

CellControlDriveID is a device designed to eliminate texting and using apps while driving.

It’s a small unit that mounts behind a car’s rearview mirror. Then, an app would be downloaded to the driver’s phone that is going to be restricted while in the car.

It’s a solar-powered device that doesn’t need charging.

Once it’s activated, the unit can tell if a phone is on the driver or passenger side of the car.

The device can disable handheld calls and keypad dialing but still allow for incoming hands-free calls to be received. 911 also always works.

Texting is included in the Apps setting, and all settings can be controlled by a parent on the online account. If a teen driver were to turn the app off, then the account holding parent gets an email. While technology can’t take away every risk for teen drivers, it can go a long way to creating a safer situation and providing parents with more peace of mind.