Satellite chaperones keep track of your teen driver

Ever wish you could make yourself invisible when your teenager takes your new car out for a spin so you could ride along to see how he or she handles the responsibility?

Well, now you can.

New tracking devices that allow parents to spy on the driving habits of their teens are on the market.

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Similar to the data recorders used in airplanes, these little black boxes record just about every move a young driver makes. So much for the newfound freedom of a driver's license.

For a few hundred dollars, parents can find out how well and how fast a child is driving the family car when no one else is around.

Did he or she gun the engine? Tear out of the school parking lot? Drive over the speed limit on the way to that away game? You will know.

Did he or she really drive straight home after soccer practice? Were they really where they said they were on Saturday night? You'll know that too.

Easy to conceal
And because a black box is no bigger than a deck or two of cards, it's easy to hide. Teens may have no idea their driving is being monitored unless their parents tell them.

Brittany Benamy, 17, of Atlanta thought her dad had spies all over town. He always seemed to know when she was speeding in her BMW.

"He kept telling me one of his friends saw me speeding," Benamy says. "Now that I know it's in there I don't tend to speed."

Dean Benamy has been tracking his daughter's driving for more than a year with SignalTrac. The tracking device, which is installed behind the car's dashboard and radio, is hidden from view.

By utilizing global positioning satellites and cellular technology, SignalTrac reports the position of a tracked car every five minutes. Benamy receives e-mails when Brittany arrives at home and school and every time her BMW exceeds 80 mph.

"We really decided to do it for safety and peace of mind," Dean Benamy says. "Having a 16-year-old driving is a frightening experience."

Benamy also checks the location of Brittany's car on weekend nights when her midnight curfew is nearing.

"The scariest part of the night is 11:30 and beyond," Dean Benamy says.

Other parents who choose to track a teen's driving feel much the same way.

"It's a very emotional thing with parents," says Wright Gore, president of SmartDriver.

"They're very worried about a teen with a freshly minted license with friends in the car cranking up the stereo and driving like a bat out of hell."

Teen drivers are at risk
Statistics on teen drivers back up these concerns. Teen drivers are more than twice as likely to be involved in car accidents as adult drivers, and 16-year-olds are at the highest risk, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

"A lack of sound driving judgment and a feeling of invincibility. That explains why 16-year-olds get into more accidents than anybody else," Gore says.

Monitoring a teen's driving gives worried parents some peace of mind, and it could encourage even the most reluctant teens to drive more responsibly.

One family purchased a SmartDriver black box after their 16-year-old son was pulled over for going 106 mph in a 55 mph zone.

The parents placed a SmartDriver in the son's sports utility vehicle. It recorded his next high-speed outing. His folks learned about the speeding when they plugged the black box into a home computer and read a vehicle report. The son hasn't speeded since.

"It's provided an effective deterrent to reckless driving behavior from that point on," Gore says.

The cost of tracking a teen driver
Transforming a teen from a careless driver to a careful driver with the help of a little black box isn't cheap. Costs range from $285 to more than $1,000. This chart from Bankrate.com details the costs of tracking a teen driver.

Costs and safety issues aside, it makes you wonder how comfortable an adult would feel if someone slapped a tracking device onto their car.

And even Gore of SmartDriver says he's glad his parents couldn't track his driving back when he was a teenager.

"Goodness knows I was scary when I was 16," Gore says. "I think I would have been locked in my room until I was 37."

Benamy, 41, plans on tracking his daughter's driving throughout her high school and college years. But even he admits he wouldn't have liked it if his parents spied on his driving 25 years ago.

"I probably wouldn't have liked it," Benamy says. "Was I a good driver? Yes. Was I a responsible driver? No."

A teenaged Benamy had something of a need for speed. So his father laid down some tough ground rules -- get a speeding ticket and lose all driving privileges, case closed.

"Fear was a teen tracking device back then."