2001 GEORGIA LEGISLATURE: Compromise eliminates no-drive zone
Plan to restrict 16-year-olds called 'stupid'
Kathey Pruitt - Staff
Thursday, March 22, 2001

In the waning hours of the General Assembly 2001 session Wednesday, Gov. Roy Barnes traded his no-drive zone for solo 16-year-old drivers in metro Atlanta for a blue ribbon panel to study the problems of teen driving over the summer.

The compromise reached with entrenched House leaders --- particularly Speaker Tom Murphy (D-Bremen) who called the no-drive zone "stupid" and "ridiculous" --- is as close as Barnes has come to a legislative loss in his three sessions as governor. The compromise was awaiting final approval by the House and Senate.

A Senate package that would impose passenger limits, require driver instruction and limit nighttime driving hours also remained in peril as lawmakers prepared to wrap up for the year, a potential victim of a dispute over double-dating.

It was a session-long fight waged by both Barnes and the Senate on teen driving that, at the end, promised only incremental changes over current law. But lawmakers who pressed for stronger teen driving laws declared victory --- and the potential for even stronger laws next year.

Administration leaders promised that the 21-member blue ribbon panel will arrive with recommendations for changes next year to address teen driving problems caused by inexperience. And they insisted that such recommendations rarely go unheeded.

But Barnes' floor leaders bristled at suggestions that Barnes lost on the issue because he failed to convince skeptical House leaders of the need to ban unsupervised 16-year-old drivers from the roads in Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Fulton counties.

"I'm personally offended to call it a loss when you win 80 percent of a bill,'' said Sen. Steve Thompson (D-Powder Springs), Barnes' floor leader in the Senate. "He knew it would be an uphill fight. But Roy Barnes doesn't keep score on his record, most especially when it comes to the life of 16-year-olds."

The teen no-drive zone was part of an omnibus package of highway safety reforms, including a lower threshold for DUI charges, a new crime of road rage, tougher open container laws and penalties for repeat offenders.

It started out at 18 counties, but shrank to five, then to four, when it encountered tremendous resistance in the House. Murphy himself took the well Wednesday, drawing applause from members as he pronounced himself "tired, literally tired . . . of punishing the good young people of Georgia for the sins of a few bad young people."

"He's my friend,'' Murphy said of Barnes, a longtime legislative ally. "I supported him. But he's wrong on this, just as wrong as he can be."

Murphy also set the tone as House and Senate negotiators tried to work out a compromise on the package of teen driving reforms pushed by Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor and a bipartisan group of senators.

As the hour grew late on the Legislature's final day, Murphy insisted --- even stronger than his negotiators had first thought --- on retaining passenger limits that would allow double-dating at 16 years and three months.

Negotiators agreed to impose, beginning next January, a no-exceptions driving curfew from midnight to 6 a.m. and to require new drivers to have 40 hours of driver training --- either by a parent, an Internet driving course or a driver's ed course. They also agreed to require tougher, on-road tests throughout the state as soon as new license examiners are hired or trained.

But House members maintained that double-dating is "an American institution" and that allowing two couples in a car is safer than four boys or girls.

"If you stick four guys and a pack of Budweiser in the car, you're going to have problems,'' said Rep. Bobby Parham (D-Milledgeville).

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