Advanced driver assistance features have the potential to improve safety for young, novice drivers, but parents have mixed opinions about how to introduce such technologies to their teenagers, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows.

The dilemma that parents of new drivers face is that the new technology like blind spot monitoring or lane departure warning systems could prevent their teenage drivers from learning the basics of driving, but they’re also aware those same features might save them from a crash, says IIHS Research Scientist Rebecca Weast, the lead author of the study.

According to the IIHS, in its February issue of Status Report, teenage drivers are three times as likely as those 20 or older to be involved in a fatal crash. Those deaths are often the result of single-vehicle crashes caused by speeding or other errors that cause the driver to lose control.

Because teens most often drive older, cheaper vehicles, they’re also less likely to benefit from proven crash prevention technologies like automatic emergency braking — which is expected to be installed in less than a quarter of the vehicles on U.S. roads by 2023 despite a major push from manufacturers. But AEB and other features like blind spot monitoring systems and sensors that warn the driver when the vehicle is drifting out of its lane are becoming more and more common on the cars that their parents drive and they learn on.

While many parents said they believe these features provide some safety benefits, they were divided about when and how they should be used during the process of learning to drive. “Those features make driving safer, but they don’t make you a safer driver,” said one parent.

“Say my teen is driving in a car with all those features engaged [and] that’s what they get used to. Then they go out and buy their own car, and it’s got none of those features. That would be really scary for me.”

Parents’ opinions were split about whether new drivers should be introduced to the driving assistance features at the beginning of the learning process or after they’d learned some of the basic skills. “I’m training my daughter to use all the technology that’s available with the car,” said a third parent, adding that young people are often more tech-savvy than older adults. “If it’s there, why not?”

“More research is needed to determine what role these features should play in learning to drive and how to ensure new drivers use these features properly,” says Weast. “That’s complicated because owners of vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems often themselves don’t understand their capabilities and limitations.”