Another great site for safety information is the think tank offered by the nation's auto insurers, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Their crash test data is probably more complete than NHTSA s and certainly easier to understand.

My choice was a used Chevy Lumina - a big, solid car, complete with airbags and anti-lock breaks. It was a car that came highly recommended for its safety features by a number of car analysts and reviewers.

New Car Test Drive has archives that go back to 1994. Microsoft's CarPoint also has readable reviews and plenty of concern is paid to safety issues.

While my son didn't think the used Lumina was the car of his dreams, he was enthusiastic about the idea of his own car and thought the Lumina felt powerful and secure. I was comforted that I had purchased a safe, economical, reliable vehicle.

You might also be interested in knowing how I found the Chevy Lumina. I had made up my mind that the Lumina and a couple of other cars, including a Volvo and a Ford Taurus, were my first choices.

I plugged them into Auto-By-Tel, a buying service that hooked me up with dealers who had what I was looking for. They did the haggling -- I didn't have to. By the time the dealer got in touch with me, the price was set.

I was able to verify that their prices were in the right ballpark because I checked out the book value of the cars I was considering in the Kelly Blue Book. The interactive Kelly Blue Book reports date to 1977, and is very easy to access. Kelly also helps you evaluate the condition of the car.

Ultimately, I didn't buy a car through Auto-By-Tel, a fact that they took graciously. There was no obligation. We found my son's car the old fashioned way.

We searched the Philadelphia Inquirer's Philadelphia Online and the Trenton Times New Jersey Online classifieds. We located a man who lived less than a mile from us who had a 1992 Lumina coupe with about 98,000 miles to sell at $3,900.

Since the Kelly Blue Book retail price was $6,400 and our local mechanic said it was in good shape, we snapped it up. If your local newspaper doesn't have its classifieds online, you might try www.adone.com.

This searchable site includes classifieds from many weekly and small daily papers; probably one will be located close to you. There were several near us, but the big boys had the better deals.

Next I had to get the kid insurance. I contacted three insurers: the one that I had been doing business with, Ohio Casualty , and two others for comparison's sake, Allstate and Erie .

All offered great web sites for young drivers. I took a look at them for advice about keeping the price as low as possible. Ohio Casualty even offered a calculator that helped me figure out how much more I would pay when I added Kit to the policy.

Insurance companies take the age of the driver seriously. Sixteen and 17-year-olds will pay more than older youth, with the price falling once a young adult turns 25.

Driving history is another factor. Insurance companies assume young drivers don't have much experience and are likely candidates for an accident. If your teen actually has an accident or accumulates violations, especially speeding, your costs will go through the roof. In fact, your insurer may cancel you and your teen altogether.

The type of car is a third factor. Sports cars and high performance vehicles are obviously going to be more expensive, but other factors are not so clear cut.

Some rather benign-looking vehicles can be classified high risk if heir horse power is great in proportion to their weight; if repairing them is costly; or if they are on the list of cars likely to be stolen. Your agent can offer the best guidance here. Before you buy a car, get him to tell you how it is rated.

Other things that I learned from insurance web sites is this:

Keep the car's ownership in your name. Under those conditions, most insurers will offer you a sizable multi-car discount, especially if you guarantee that the annual mileage will be under 10,000. The only exception is if you already have a couple of very expensive-to-insure cars in the family. Then it is possible that insuring a low-cost car in your young driver's own name could be cheaper.

Insist that your young driver complete a driver's education course. In some states this is a requirement. In others, it's not, but in any case, the courses are time well spent learning the correct and safe way to drive. Completion will also reduce insurance costs.

Tell your driver to keep his grades up. Many companies provide discounts for good-student drivers.

If your student goes to college more than 300 miles away, tell him to leave the car at home. Under those circumstances, you can probably negotiate a greatly reduced premium for occasional driving on school break.

Finally we were almost ready to take a drive. That is when I laid down the rules. I found guidance on the web at a variety of sites. Here are a couple:

Ryan Buckholtz, a freshman at the University of North Carolina, built the Teen New Drivers' Homepage to give young drivers good advice Parents Against Speeding Teens are tough, but they have good ideas.

And here are the rules.

Seatbelts. In more than half of all accidents where teens die, they are not wearing their seatbelts. Kit knows that he and anybody who rides with him must wear both the lap and shoulder belt properly.

I told him, "When you sit behind the wheel of the car, the people who sit in the car with you reach over and hand you their lives. And they want those lives back when they get out. So the first thing you have to do is tell them to buckle up."

Drinking. I have absolute zero tolerance for drinking and driving. I cut a deal with Kit. If he promises never to drive after using alcohol or drugs, I promised to provide transportation home at any hour of the day or night without asking any questions or levying penalties.

Speeding. Thirty-seven percent of all 16-year-old drivers in fatal crashes were speeding or, if not exceeding the limit, going too fast for road conditions. The first speeding ticket Kit gets he knows will result in a 90-day suspension of his driving privileges.

And when he agreed, I handed him the keys ... and prayed.