Handing Down Your Old Car To Your Kid Could Be Deadly: Study

Plenty of parents for decades have handed the keys to their old car over to their new teen driver, but a study warns that decision could be deadly. Instead, Nationwide Children’s Hospital recommends buying something that’s at most five years old.

Stolen Toyota recovered with a mortar left inside.

We guess that means mom or dad just keeps driving an old hunk of junk while junior has something much newer, which seems screwed up to us. But the reasoning for this conclusion has to do with safety.

Researchers were able to conclude that teenagers driving cars that are 6 to 15 years old face a 19 percent greater risk of death in a crash versus their peers who drive cars that are five years old or newer.

Even worse, kids driving vehicles that are over 15 years old face a 31 percent higher risk of death in a crash. In other words, according to this study, if you truly love your child you will buy them something almost brand new.

If we didn’t know better, we’d say this study was paid for by the National Automobile Dealers Association.

When we were young drivers, we and all of our friends drove pieces of junk. Only a few spoiled kids had newer cars and that was often done as a status symbol so the parents could brag and think they looked good.

Since kids are more likely to rub the car against poles, curb rash the wheels, etc. the reasoning was that an older ride that was already not perfect was a good option for learning how to drive. Little did we know our parents put us at risk of death instead of buying us the new Mustang Bobby had and drove like a maniac.

The study reasons that newer cars have better safety designs and features than old rides. That generalization doesn’t always hold true. For example, we’d put an old Volvo up against some new shoebox with a backup camera, sensors, and other fancy tech any day.

But the study argues teen drivers need all the electronic nanny devices so they stay safe. But then they don’t learn how to monitor those things themselves and become completely dependent on the technology.  

We get the desire to keep your kids safe – that’s partly your job as a parent. But spoiling your kid with a newer car than you have, especially if that puts you in a difficult financial position with how expensive vehicles are these days, we think teaches entitlement and sets a standard that might lead to them feeling outraged and disappointed they don’t always get nice things in life.

There’s a lesson in humility to be learned by driving an old car where everything isn’t perfect. That of course isn’t discussed in the study. But what do you think? Should teens have a new or newer car? Or is mom or dad’s old ride good enough?

Read the study here.

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