Teen Driver Safety Series

   Empowerment

     Eric Shishko, Senior Vice President, Insurance

The idea of an empowered organization became one of many organizational behavior goals during the 90’s and in many ways it continues to be part of the corporate management lexicon.  The challenge of course has always been how to do it.

I’ve long held the view that the key to empowering anyone, be they corporate employees or teenagers (intentional segue here), is to provide people with the knowledge to make decisions.  You cannot truly empower anyone unless they have access to the tools, information, resources etc, to be able to get things done. To expect otherwise is not truly empowerment and the expectations of improved performance or improved decision making will unlikely be achieved.  The worst part of this scenario is that the person you thought was empowered will inevitably fail and likely blame themselves in the process for that failure.

So we take our little segue back to a teen focus.  Most teens want to have more freedom, they want more responsibility and they want to be respected.  With those goals for themselves, it is a shame to leave them without all the tools we can give them to achieve their goals.  Conversely, if teens are empowered to guide themselves in more productive ways, they are more likely to earn those same freedoms, responsibility and respect.

When it comes to teens and driving, for most teens mobility and freedom are at the top of the “why I need to drive and have a car” list. Unfortunately, safety is not at the top of the list.  But there is good news, it seems that the very freedoms they seek can be earned and in the process of earning those freedoms, safety improves as well.  By empowering teens with objective information about the way they drive and tying improvements to the benefits of earning rewards, they will be able to make their own choices and most of the time they will be the right choices. (Remember it only takes one psychologist to change a light bulb if the light bulb really wants to change).

So we are back to the rewards or incentives issue.  It turns out that in addition to a chance to earn gas money or other economic incentives, teens also value earning more freedom and responsibility.  We now have another option with which to encourage teens to make the right choices when it comes to the way they drive.  But in order to make this work, the teen driver needs to have access to the information they need to be empowered.

This is where GreenRoad comes in.  For over a thousand teens around the world, GreenRoad is providing the objective feedback that teens are using to decide for themselves how they will drive and how they will earn the rewards that come with responsible behavior.  GreenRoad is designed to empower drivers, to give drivers the information they need to make their own decisions, every day, every hour and every minute they drive.  This is quite different from Big Brother watching. Big Brother is not empowerment, it's control, and it rarely works (at least not in the long term).  And let’s be realistic, when was the last time you really controlled your teen?  On the other hand, when teens make their own choices, they are often the right ones and for that we are all grateful.  

Questions and comments can be directed to: eshishko@greenroadtech.com