TEEN DRIVING The road to restriction

By DANIEL B. WOOD
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
LOS ANGELES -- For teenagers, it's life's most crucial rite of passage, second only to birth itself. For parents and law enforcement, it's often a real-life installment of "Fear Factor." The occasion: when a teen gets a driver's license.
In the same laminated wallet card where youth see "escape" and "deliverance," adults see "responsibility" and "liability." Indeed, teen drivers are the leading cause of death between the ages of 15 and 20 in the United States.
Over the past decade, concerns over teen-driving fatalities have led a few states to change requirements for novice drivers, such as limiting passenger numbers and the time of day they can drive.
In California, new drivers are forbidden to carry teen passengers for the first six months. Result? A 40 percent drop between 1998 and 2000 in the number of crashes involving 16-year-old drivers.
Even teenagers are starting to take a sober-eyed view.
"I don't think 16-year-olds are mature enough to make decisions about driving," says Leo Livshetz, a 16-year-old in Sherman Oaks, Calif. "This law has given juveniles a bit more time to get used to handling cars without all their peers jammed into the car."
The seven states that enacted the toughest laws report similar successes.
Seeking change
Now, a federal agency wants the rest of the country to implement similarly tough measures. The National Transportation Safety Board is lobbying states to adopt stringent requirements for teen drivers.
"We know that strong, enforced, graduated-licensing laws will prevent countless deaths of teen drivers on America's highways," says Carol Carmody, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Thirty-six states -- including Ohio and Pennsylvania -- and the District of Columbia already have some form of so-called GDL laws (short for graduated drivers license). They are aimed at regulating numbers of teen passengers and nighttime driving for a new driver's first year or two, giving teens more time to learn under supervision.
But those few states limiting the number of passengers alongside teen drivers to one, or none, for up to six months (California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin) have had the biggest turnaround in fatalities and injuries.
Armed with these and other statistics, the NTSB used a Nov. 6 meeting of the world's major researchers on the licensing of young drivers to launch its countrywide push for even stronger legislation. Accordingly, the NTSB -- a federal investigative agency with advisory discretion but no regulatory powers -- is recommending two new safety regulations to states.
U That all states restrict young novice drivers with provisional licenses from carrying more than one passenger under the age of 20 (unless the driver is accompanied by an adult 21 years or older) for their first six months.
UThat states require the adult supervising a learner to be 21 or older.
Restrictions apply
While teenagers in Ohio and Pennsylvania don't face the same stringent requirements, both states do limit the times and circumstances under which teens may drive.
In Ohio, for example, those under 17 with a temporary permit may drive between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. only with a parent, guardian or custodian who is a licensed driver and over 21. After obtaining a license, the teen's restriction is eased to allow for work, school or emergency driving.
Pennsylania expands the hours to 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.
In addition, both states penalize learning drivers for various legal infractions.
Clearly, both states treat driving as a privilege.
Differing regulations
One confusion for teen drivers at the moment, say proponents of tougher regulations, is that neighboring states often have dramatic variations in restrictions -- some from 1 to 5 a.m., and others from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Age requirements for passengers are often different as are the licensing ages of drivers.
But overall, say observers, the trend is both clear and consistent -- the stronger the restrictions, the fewer the crashes.