She can't help but wonder if such provisions might have kept her daughter, Haley, from dying in a Cobb County car crash last November.

"No act on your part can ever bring our precious Haley back," she said, her voice quivering. "But if you can spare one parent from the gut-wrenching agony we experience on a daily basis, it would be well worth the effort."

The state Senate, urged on by Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor and Sen. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta), appears ready to pursue stronger restrictions on teen drivers.

But the Senate Public Safety Committee shied away from one of the most stringent provisions called for by Gov. Roy Barnes -- a 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. nighttime driving curfew for 16- and 17-year-olds. Instead, in a substitute bill unveiled by Taylor on Wednesday, the Senate committee suggested that 16-year-old drivers be off the roads at 10 p.m., while setting the curfew for 17-year-old drivers at midnight.

Doctors and national experts say the curfew should be expanded, not narrowed. A pediatrician speaking on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics urged lawmakers to consider a 9 p.m. curfew like that in North Carolina, where fatalities and injuries have dropped by 29 percent.

But Barnes' office praised senators for adding several of his proposals and making other provisions tougher.

Under the new bill, virtually any moving violation would cause a 16-year-old to lose his or her license for six months. A second violation would take them off the road for a year.

"Driving is a privilege for all of us," Taylor said. "If you violate the law while you're a teenager, you should suffer sanctions or delays."

A Senate committee is expected to approve the bill Tuesday, setting up a vote by the full Senate as early as next Jan. 26.

The Senate bill requires 40 hours of driver instruction, either wholly by a parent or adult or in conjunction with structured driver training classes, for new drivers to get a license. Yet some parents urged lawmakers to require professional driver instruction or restore driver's ed cut from most Georgia schools in the 1980s.

"You've got to do something because our children don't always make the right decisions," Vickie Boudreau said as she described how her daughter died last October after climbing into the car with three other Newton County High School students."There are no limits too great. Get driver's ed back in school. Educate these children where their parents are failing."

Cost is the factor lawmakers cite most regarding driver training in public schools.

Sen. Donzella James (D-Atlanta) wants to add $2 to the cost of renewing driver's licenses to help pay for driver's ed in schools. State School Superintendent Linda Schrenko said she thinks the state should make money available to pay for driver education classes in systems that want to offer them.