Community Corner
'How's My Driving?' Bumper Sticker for Teens
Stafford High School grads and their dad created a way for the community to keep an eye on teen drivers.
Ever wish you could know how your teen is driving when you're not watching? Two Stafford High grads and their father have come up with a way to keep parents in the know.
Robert "Bob" Fabian and his adult sons Andrew and Jeffery are the minds behind teendrivingsticker.com, a service which provides a bumper sticker with a short code that other drivers can use to report a teen's good or bad driving.
They aren't selling the sticker but rather the service, which provides two years of monitoring for just $20, Bob Fabian said.
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If another driver takes note of something, they enter the code on the website and leave a note, which is then sent via email to the parent of the child with that code.
"It's the community being an extension of the parents," Fabian said. "The community is looking out for each other." It's not a tattle-tale service but a proactive way to get teens to drive safely, he said.
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"We want them to know that we're watching them. It's one more precaution. It doesn't have to bad, it can be good. It's nice to hear good things," Fabian said.
"It's good to be more proactive ... but what you don't want to hear is, 'Your kid's been in an accident.' Being proactive doesn't guarantee anything, but I think you can minimize some of the bad," he said.
When witnesses to teen driving come to the website, there is a message asking them to not be overly emotional in their note and to not use profanity, he said.
If there is a bad report on the teen driver, the website offers parents council on how to talk to the teen in a respectful manner about the situation and make the conversation positive.
Even children otherwise well-behaved can make mistakes in the car, Fabian said. "You can be the parent of a good teen, but when they get in the car, well, let me say this—when I got in the car—there's the 'good' you and there's the you that wants to experience the dark side of things," Fabian said.
The teen driving bumper stickers would be a good fundraiser items for schools, he said. It's easier than selling candy bars or pizza and the monetary profit would be great for the fundraising group, said Fabian, who works in technology at Osbourn High School in Manassas. A bumper sticker fundraiser can be used year after year because there are always new teen drivers taking to the roadway, he said.
Twenty-eight year old Jeffery Fabian came up with the idea after seeing the "How's My Driving?" bumper stickers on company fleets. Thirty-year-old Andrew Fabian is a computer savvy programmer who developed the web-based aspect of the business.
More information about the teen driving bumper stickers is available by emailing info@teendrivingsticker.com or calling 571-261-TEEN.
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