States Alter Driving Laws: Look to Parents to be Involved in Teaching Their Teens to Drive

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States across the country are beginning to address the leading cause of death among youth ages 15 to 20—traffic crashes—by altering driving laws to include more behind-the-wheel time for teens accompanied by a parent.

Most of these changes have been sparked by a campaign initiated in September 1997 by AAA Motor Club called "Licensed to Learn: A Safety Program for New Drivers." The Licensed to Learn Program contains three key steps:

• Raise awareness of the importance of novice driver safety and incorporate the issue into the national public health agenda.
  
  
• Mandate more behind-the-wheel driving experience, provide guidelines for selecting driver education courses, and increase parental involvement in teen driver training.
  
  
• Implement a graduated licensing system for novice drivers in all 50 states by the year 2000 and eliminate deficiencies in the licensing process that allow new drivers to become fully licensed without assuring they are ready to drive ("AAA Launches Major Campaign," 1998).
  
  

Since September, in response to these steps, a handful of states have initiated a three-step licensing system for its youngest drivers, including Illinois, North Carolina, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, Georgia, and Ohio ("AAA Launches Major Campaign," 1998).

In Illinois, the system changes from a two-step system comprised of a learner’s permit and a full driver’s license to a system that retains the learner’s permit and full license but adds a "graduated" step for drivers ages 16 to 20. This "graduated step" includes tougher penalties for violating traffic laws and new practice requirements for learning drivers ("Ryan, Allstate Team Up," 1998). These practice requirements will require the involvement of parents, because a 16-year-old must have parent or guardian certification that the driver has completed at least 25 hours of supervised behind-the-wheel instruction outside of driver’s education class before he or she is awarded a driver’s license.

Illinois Secretary of State George Ryan is quick to add that the Illinois law does NOT raise the driving age, as young people can still get their licenses at 16. "The tougher penalties are intended to drive home to young motorists that a car is a tremendous responsibility and that mistakes behind the wheel can affect their lives, the lives of their friends, and the lives of others on the road ("Ryan, Allstate Team Up," 1998)."

Some changes in other states include:

• In Ohio, schools that offer driver training must now include 8 hours of behind-the-wheel training (the old law required 6 hours). In addition, students must have 50 hours of practice time before they can get a license (Lazarovici, 1998).
  
  
• In Michigan, many of the loopholes (such as counting the time students observed others in the car, or time spent driving on a range instead of the road) that could have reduced the required 6 hours of behind-the-wheel training to 2 have been eliminated (Lazarovici, 1998).
  
  
• In California, teens must spend 50 hours behind-the-wheel with a parent in order to get a provisional driver’s license, including 10 hours at night (Lazarovici, 1998).
  
  

National statistics reported by AAA (1998) as they launched the "Licensed to Learn" campaign underscore the severity of the problem:

• While drivers 15 to 20 years old account for only 7% of the total driving population, they are involved in 14% of all fatal traffic crashes and nearly 20% of total crashes.
  
  
• More than 6,300 drivers and passengers 15 to 20 years of age died in traffic crashes in 1996—an average of more than 17 deaths each day. These numbers are expected to rise to more than 20 per day by 2012, when the number of young drivers will have increased by 25%.
  
  
• In 76% of fatal crashes involving 15- to 20-year-old drivers, police reports show driver error or other factors related to driver behavior are caused by inexperience, poor driving skills, risk-taking, or poor decision making.
  
  
• Two-thirds of teen passengers killed were in vehicles driven by another teen.
  
  

Despite these numbers, in a survey conducted by AAA, only 20% of the public identifies traffic crashes as the greatest threat to teenagers ("AAA Launches Major Campaign," 1998). Instead, almost half listed drug addiction as the greatest risk, which only ranks 28^th among all causes of death for persons this age group.

In contrast, AAA reports that studies show the risk of having an accident declines sharply after someone has three to four years of driving experience—thus the emphasis on graduated licensing systems to allow youths to gain experience and maturity while reducing risk by limiting the situations in which they drive.

According to AAA President Robert L. Darbelnet, "Mistakes are part of any learning process, including driving. The issue is how to minimize the likelihood that crashes will occur while young people are learning how to drive and how best to protect them from injury."

Additional Resources

• Licensed to Learn
  
  
• Illinois "Graduate to Safety" program
  
  
• 4MY TEEN
  
  

Sources

AAA Launches Major Campaign to Fight Young Driver Deaths [Online]. Available: http://www.aaa.com/news/learn.html [1998, February 9].

Lazarovici, Laureen. (1998, January 8). Parents behind the wheel as states alter driving laws. Education Daily, 31(4), 1-2.

Ryan, Allstate team up to promote 'Graduate to Safety' [Online]. Available: http://www.sos.state.il.us/new/press/release/971212f1.html [1998, February 9].

Credits

Prepared for Parent News by Dawn Ramsburg.

Published monthly by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Children's Research Center, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, IL 61820-7469. This publication was funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under contract no. DERR93002007. Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the Department of Education.

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