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Sibling Safety

You got a break in your busy summer schedule: Your newly licensed teenager has volunteered to chauffeur his younger sisters to the pool, tennis camp or wherever they need to go. Before you hand over the keys, establish nonnegotiable safety rules for your teen and his siblings. A 2005 study of car crashes by Partners for Child Passenger Safety reported that children who were driven by a teen were three times as likely to have a serious injury as those driven by an adult.

Study Says...
Teens were more likely than adult drivers to be involved in more severe crashes.
...You Say
Distractions are not allowed. Inexperienced drivers should focus all their attention on the road. Whether or not local laws forbid it, you can ban cell phone use, texting, eating and blasting the stereo.

Study Says...
Children riding with teen drivers were three times as likely to have no restraint as those with adult drivers.
...You Say
Buckle up -- no exceptions. Teens have the lowest rate of seat belt use of any age group. If they're not buckling up, their siblings may follow their bad example.

Study Says...
Teens were less likely to have child passengers under age 9 properly restrained.
...You Say
Sit right. Demonstrate to your teen how to correctly buckle young siblings into booster seats and child safety seats.

Tune into the Weather

You've got The Weather Channel on TV and the hourly boating forecast on your computer. So why should you also buy an NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Weather Radio? Two key reasons: It broadcasts weather alerts even during power outages, and it will sound an alarm to wake you from sleep in an emergency, such as a tornado touching down nearby in the middle of the night.

NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is a free government radio network that broadcasts National Weather Service alerts and forecasts 24 hours a day. It also announces civil emergency messages, such as AMBER Alerts, 911 outages, train derailments, contaminated water warnings and more.

You can't receive these transmissions on a regular AM/FM radio; you need a special weather radio or scanner, which costs around $20-$80 or more and is available at electronics and sporting goods stores.

All basic models include a standby mode that allows you to turn the audio off when you go to sleep. If an emergency message is broadcast for your area, your receiver will notify you by sounding a loud alarm.

"Like a smoke detector, an NOAA Weather Radio is on all the time," says Christopher Vaccaro of the NOAA. "It's on guard around the clock to provide critical alerts as necessary, when seconds or minutes could mean the difference between life and death."

1 in 6

That's the number of U.S. drivers who may be without insurance by 2010. Rising unemployment leads to increasing numbers of uninsured motorists, according to a new study by the Insurance Research Council. To protect yourself, check that your auto insurance policy includes UM (Uninsured Motorists) coverage.

Travel Advisory

One thing that's guaranteed this summer: Identity thieves won't take a vacation from making your life miserable. Make sure your travels don't include filing police reports and scrambling to cancel credit cards by taking these steps suggested by an identity management expert:

• Head to a photocopier. Before your vacation starts, copy the contents of everyone's wallets -- the fronts and backs of credit cards, driver's licenses, passports and other key documents. If the worst happens, you'll have all the contact information and account numbers needed to immediately freeze your accounts. Don't carry the backup copies with you; leave them with a trusted friend or family member you can phone in case of emergency.
• Pare down. Do you really need a department-store credit card while on a cruise? Leave all but two of your credit cards at home.
• Hold the mail. Put a stop on your mail at the US Post Office. Put in your request in person or online at usps.com.
• Avoid public computers. There are many ways your passwords and account information can be compromised. It's OK to use the computers in a hotel lobby or Internet café to check your team's scores, but don't use them for online banking or to access your email account.