In an attempt to
put the brakes on teenage driving fatalities, Georgia senators today
unanimously approved tough new restrictions on the hours youngsters
can drive, the number of passengers they can carry and the amount of
training they have to have before hitting the road.
The proposal by Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor and Sen. Phil Gingrey
(R-Marietta) passed 54-0.
It now moves to the state House, where it's likely to face much
bigger roadblocks. House Speaker Tom Murphy has said he has serious
reservations about penalizing good teenage drivers. Other lawmakers
say they will heavily scrutinize measures to keep 16-year-olds off
the road between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and to ban nighttime driving by
17-year-olds between midnight and 6 a.m.
Legislation that cleared the Senate also:
restricts drivers under 18 to only one unrelated passenger;
requires 40 hours of mandatory driver instruction;
and requires a harder on-road test for new drivers.
Too often, lawmakers said, teenagers get their license with
little attention to any of those provisions.
"We know this is a recipe for disaster," Gingrey said.
National experts have praised parts of the legislation as the
best solution to the alarming rate of teen driving carnage in metro
Atlanta, where almost two dozen such fatalities were recorded last
year.
Supporters of the bill fended off amendments they said would
"gut" the legislation -- attempts to provide curfew
exemptions for teenagers driving to and from work, school or church
activities.
And they agreed to strengthen provisions on 17-year-olds,
subjecting them to the same near no-tolerance provisions for moving
violations, like driving 14 mph over the speed limit or running red
lights or stop signs. For teens 16 and 17, those or virtually any
other moving violations would prompt a license revocation for six
months. The second violation would lift licenses for a year.