# Car access and costs

**Should we give our teen a car, and who pays for it?**

Whether your teen has their own car or shares the family car, and who pays for the car and insurance.

In short: Parents choose between 3 main approaches: Teen buys and insures; Shared family car, teen contributes; Parents provide. Evidence: evidence leans one way. Research or guidance points in a direction, but it's thin, small or correlational. Best settled: teen.

- Area: The teen years
- Evidence: Evidence leans one way
- Best settled: Teen
- First published: 2026-10-03
- Last updated: 2026-10-05
- Page: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/topics/the-teen-years--car-access-and-costs

## Car access and costs: what are the options?

1. **Teen buys and insures**: The teen pays for their own car and insurance.
2. **Shared family car, teen contributes**: The teen uses the family car and pays toward gas or insurance.
3. **Parents provide**: You give the teen a car and cover the costs.

## Car access and costs: what does the evidence say?

**Evidence leans one way.** Research or guidance points in a direction, but it's thin, small or correlational.

Having their own car at the start of licensing is associated with higher crash risk, which an Australian cohort found persisted for about seven years into early adulthood, and a naturalistic driving study found vehicle ownership predicted riskier teen driving; low parental monitoring is one proposed explanation (I could read these only as abstracts or summaries). A review of parent involvement in teen driving supports clear rules and supportive monitoring alongside graduated licensing. Who pays for the car and insurance is a family finance question with no outcome research

Sources:

- [DRIVE study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457524000617)
- [PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6198648/)
- [Simons-Morton, PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1942043/)

## What else is worth knowing?

A car, insurance and gas are significant costs. Families differ on whether a teen should pay, contribute or be provided for. This connects to how you handle money and responsibility generally.

## Questions to ask each other

- Who should pay for a car, insurance and gas?
- Would our teen contribute with a job?
- What happens if they have a crash?

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General information, not medical advice. Two parents can each answer this and compare: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/explore?cat=the-teen-years&topic=the-teen-years--car-access-and-costs