The Lane Ranger: Teen drivers safer in city than hinterlands
Joey Ledford - Staff
Sunday, January 21, 2001

If Gov. Roy Barnes wants to raise the driving age in metro Atlanta to 17 to reduce traffic a bit by getting 16-year-olds off the road, it's a good idea.

But if the reason for the dual driving age is the perception that metro Atlanta is a more hazardous place for teen drivers than the rest of the state, long-term data suggest it's misguided.

Both rural Georgia and Atlanta's outlying suburbs had higher fatality rates for 16-year-old drivers in 1999 than the five major metro counties.

The five largest metro counties saw 10 drivers age 16 die in 1999, which translates into a fatality rate of 44.8 per 100,000 licensed drivers. In rural Georgia, where lawmakers say the wide-open spaces make driving safer for 16-year-olds, 20 died, making the fatality rate 82.1 --- nearly twice that of the metro area.

The worst fatality rate of all was in 15 suburban and exurban counties --- 93.4 deaths per 100,000 licensed drivers.

Yvonne McBride, director of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety, said she was aware of those rates, which were compiled by her office, but did not want to draw too many conclusions from them.

"I want to look at the 2000 data," she said. "Within a six-month period, we had over 20 kids killed in the metro area."

But the 2000 data is incomplete and even if it shows --- as expected --- a spike in metro teen deaths, it would appear to be a one-year anomaly. A check of older data shows the 1999 figures were more consistent --- driving was more dangerous for Georgia's youngest motorists outside metro Atlanta.

According to the Department of Public Safety, 111 16-year-old drivers died in Georgia from 1995 through 1998. Sixteen of them were killed in the four metro counties in which Barnes wants to raise the driving age --- about 14 percent of the statewide total.

But licensed 16-year-old drivers in those four counties represent about 27 percent of the statewide driving population of that age, which suggests the metro death rate for those years was far lower than the rest of Georgia.

Many respected researchers in the field of teen driving oppose increasing the driving age.

"Simply postponing the age of licensure is not going to address the experience problem," said Patricia Waller, who has researched the issue for the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center.

Both states have had success with their graduated licensing systems, and neither has raised the minimum driving age. Mandatory driver training and logs documenting experience behind the wheel are far more important than licensing age, said Waller.

"What we're doing with driving violates everything we know about learning," she said. "You don't take someone and give them 30 hours of classroom instruction in music theory and six hours with a piano and then put them in Carnegie Hall."

New Jersey has had a 17-year-old driving age for years, yet 17-year-olds annually have the highest fatality rates there, said Jeff Lamm, a spokesman for the state's Division of Highway Traffic Safety.

"In 1997, drivers under 18 constituted 1.1 percent of our overall driving population, but they were involved in 3.1 percent of the fatal crashes," he said.

A far more valuable tool for saving teen lives is a tough nighttime driving curfew, said Waller, who described Georgia's current 1 a.m. curfew as worthless.

Barnes wants to move the curfew to 10 p.m. with no exceptions for 16- and 17-year-olds. The bill proposed by Sen. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta) and Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor would set it at 10 p.m. for 16-year-olds and midnight for 17-year-olds.

According to crash data, at least 49 drivers ages 16 and 17 have been killed between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. in Georgia since 1995. Also lost were 16 young passengers in their vehicles.

In Michigan, said Waller, where parents must certify they have spent 50 hours driving with their teens --- similar to a pending proposal for 40 hours in Georgia --- researchers found that parents took the responsibility seriously. In fact, an anonymous survey of parents taken during the licensing process found that teens averaged 75 hours of practice, she said, much more than the state required.

"So what if a parent only puts out 40 hours and lies about it?" Waller said. "That's 40 hours more practice than they would have had."

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