Tara Bozick – Contact Reporter
Daily Press
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A retired Navy veteran and Suffolk mother is aiming to make it easier for parents to teach their teens how to drive with simple, affordable magnetic car decals that can alert other drivers to their training status.
Hope Holman launched Hope4MyTeen in October 2015 after getting the idea for the business while teaching her three teens, now grown adults, how to drive. She noticed how other drivers were more respectful and cautious of teens in marked driving-school vehicles.

“My goal is giving parents peace of mind so they can focus on teaching,” Holman said. “I want to increase safety and awareness on the road. If people are aware, they’re more forgiving.”

According to AAA, the 100 days between Memorial Day and Labor Day is the deadliest time period for teen drivers nationwide. While there were no reported fatal teen crashes in the greater Peninsula area last summer, roughly a third of Peninsula area accidents with injuries involving teen drivers occurred in June, July and August last year, according to a past Daily Press story.

Hope Holman started a business, Hope 4 My Teen, LLC, to sell magnetic decals that let drivers know there’s an inexperienced driver behind the wheel. Here, Holman demonstrates that the decal easily attaches to the car. (Judith Lowery / Daily Press)

Hope 4 My Teen sells removable and reusable decals starting at $5.99 in 10 designs with a few available in larger sizes. The e-commerce business also sells two designs of “Teen Driver” car flags in addition to decals for senior drivers, hearing impaired drivers or general “driver in training” decals for those who may be learning but aren’t teens, she said.

The idea is to use the decals during the period where teens are practicing driving under supervision with their learner’s permits, she said.

Reviews from teens can be mixed, but the goal is to help them not have to deal with excessive honking, tailgating or being cut off because other drivers don’t understand they’re learning, Holman said.

Holman has been selling up and down the East Coast but she said she wants to grow the business with the hope of getting car dealerships, insurance companies or driver education programs on board. A mental health therapist, she said the side business helps generate money that she can use to give back to her church’s group home for at-risk teens called The Elder’s House in Chesapeake.

Shawn Ware-Avant, 47, of Norfolk has been using the decals to teach her 19-year-old daughter how to drive and plans to save them for when her 14-year-old twins, a boy and girl, also start learning.

“It’s less for her than it is for me,” Ware-Avant said. “When I’m less anxious and we’re together, it makes her more comfortable.”

Folks can spend so much on their cars and this makes sense and is cheap, Ware-Avant said.

Examples of decals and a flag. Hope Holman is expanding to hearing impaired and seniors who may also have to apologize for their driving. One of the popular new decals is “Back off! Senior driver”. (Judith Lowery / Daily Press)

Holman’s longtime friend Cynthia Washington, 49, of Newport News used the decal a couple years ago while teaching her now 18-year-old son how to drive. She wishes she had the decal when her eldest child learned.

Washington said her son felt more comfortable driving carefully because he felt like he wouldn’t be targeted.
“It made me more comfortable teaching him to drive. It kind of put us at ease,” Washington said. “It gave me a little bit more control of what I didn’t have control of. It was more a mental thing.”

For more information, visit https://hope4myteen.com or call 757-741-8336.