General Motors just announced that its 2016 Chevrolet Malibu will come with a new feature they're calling "Teen Driver." It's a system designed to help teens improve their driving skills that, as an added bonus, can generate "report cards" to help parents keep track of their children's driving habits.
Teen Driver works in a multitude of ways. It mutes the car's radio and any paired devices if occupants aren't wearing seatbelts, and also keeps track of which of the vehicle's safety systems have been activated over the course of a trip. Additionally, it can alert the driver if the vehicle's speed surpasses a predetermined maximum set by a parent.
When setting up the vehicle, parents create PIN tied to their children's key fobs. When any of those fobs activate the car, it will automatically turn on safety features like parking assistance and stability control, and prevent the driver from turning them off.
When teens are off driving without adult supervision, parents can then access a safety report that gives them vital statistics like distance traveled, times a preset speed was exceeded, and how frequently safety features like antilock braking systems were triggered. MaryAnn Beebe, the lead designer and engineer behind the Teen Driver system, hopes that this feature will mean that parents will "sit down with their teen and look at the areas where teen is doing well and look at other areas where they can improve."
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