How to use real-time speed alerts to help teen drivers
New drivers are at highest risk in their first six months of driving on their own, according to AAA and IIHS. Verizon Family Plus is here to help.
Research shows teens tend to take fewer risks when they know their parents are paying attention. But that kind of presence—using driving apps or simply staying longer in the passenger seat—won’t curb teen speeding alone. It’s not just the app, experts say. It’s the ongoing conversations, and the feeling of being seen.
Balancing that presence without making teens even more anxious is a big challenge in teen driving safety. It’s also what prompted some new features in Verizon Family Plus to help give parents that oversight, even if they’re not in the car. Now, parents can set a speed limit alert and get a push notification in the moment if a teen driver exceeds that limit. Parents can also get post-trip driving summaries and review each trip for hard braking and cornering, sudden acceleration and phone use while driving.
The app and the insights can help support those conversations. Here, experts suggest three ways parents can use Verizon Family Plus with teen drivers.
1. Talk about the risks of speeding and set a number together.
“Drive safe” and “don’t speed” lack the context needed to really help new drivers. William Van Tassel, manager of driver training programs at AAA, says speeding is really two different problems: “Driving faster than the speed limit and driving too fast for conditions.”
That second one is where teens struggle the most. They’re still learning how to read the road in real time and can struggle with issues such as:
- How weather changes braking
- How traffic changes reaction time
- How quickly situations can stack up
How Verizon Family Plus fits in:
Parents can set a speed alert for their teen (for example, 65 mph).
- If they go over it, the parent gets a real-time alert.
- Parents can see where it happened and how fast they were going.
- The app keeps a record of those moments.
These insights can help inform conversations you have with your teen to help them build better habits. How? Keep reading.
2. Oversight doesn’t mean immediately calling them when you get an alert. Wait until they get home.
It’s natural for parents to want to call their teen driver the moment they receive a speeding alert. But they shouldn’t.
“Waiting to provide feedback until the car is parked allows parents to convert a high-stress alert into a low-stress teaching opportunity,” says Diego Mondragón, product manager for Verizon Family. “This approach transforms a potential conflict into a mutual objective: ensuring everyone arrives safely, every time.”
When is that? The best time to talk to your teen driver is when they are:
- Not distracted
- Not defensive
- Actually able to think about what happened
How Verizon Family Plus fits in:
Use any speeding notifications as a chance to ask, “What was going on there?” As a parent, you want to understand how they’re making decisions, not just whether they followed the rules. This is a key part of improving teen driving behavior.
Your teen might respond that they were:
- Following the flow of traffic
- Finally getting comfortable on a familiar road
- Not realizing how fast the car was going
As a parent, you should also be prepared to talk about how you handle situations like these.
3. Use the app to monitor speed even if everything seems fine.
Teens are wired to be confident about things they don’t know anything about. What’s more, even the most responsible teens can make mistakes, says Rebecca (Becca) Weast, senior research scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Just because they’re responsible doesn’t mean they’re not a beginner,” she says.
During your teen driver’s first six months of driving on their own, you may see overconfidence drifting in. It’s typically signaled when:
- Speed starts creeping up
- Attention drifts
- Small risks go unnoticed
How Verizon Family Plus fits in:
Parents can use the trip history and map view to look at where events are happening. The app will show you where a speeding event happened along the route, not just that it happened.
That gives you something concrete to work with, especially if it’s part of a larger pattern. Your conversation might start with, “I’m noticing this keeps happening here. Let’s look at that together.”
In the first 180 days, most risky driving doesn’t look dramatic.
Risky driving might happen in moments where the situation changes and the driver doesn’t adjust quickly enough. This is something teens learn over time, and parents should be a part of that learning. In those first 180 days, stay longer in the passenger seat than you think is necessary, use tools like Verizon Family Plus to support safe teen driving and keep talking together.
We’ve got you: You’re there for them with Verizon Family. Verizon’s there for you—including our 3-year price lock*.
*Learn more about our 3-year price lock guarantee.
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How to use speed alerts with your teen
- Set up a speed limit alert before they start driving solo.
- Don’t call the moment you get a speed alert—wait until your teen is in a safe place.
- Ask what happened, don’t just point out mistakes.
- Adjust speed settings based on where and how they’re driving.
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