Teen driving law needs more limits, expert says
Jingle Davis - Staff
Thursday, December 14, 2000

Chapel Hill, N.C. --- Georgia's graduated driving license law --- aimed at curbing the state's rising death toll of teenage drivers --- has fatal flaws and needs changing, according to Robert D. Foss, a national expert who helped pioneer graduated licensing laws.

A major failing of the Georgia law, Foss said, is that it does not keep novice drivers off the road alone after dark except between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. "Georgia's nighttime restriction isn't a restriction at all," Foss said.

Foss, 53, is a senior researcher at the University of North Carolina's Highway Safety Research Center, which helped develop national teen graduated licensing concepts in a state that now boasts one of the oldest, best-documented and most comprehensive teen driving laws in the nation.

Only Michigan's law is older than North Carolina's.

Dr. Pat Waller, the now-retired scientist who helped design the Michigan law, did much of her pioneering research at the center before joining the University of Michigan's Transportation Institute, Foss said.

"The notion of graduated licensing was hatched right here in 1973," he said. "Now, it's an idea whose time has come. But it didn't for two decades, except in New Zealand and Canada, which picked it up first."

Now, the center serves as an informal clearing house for other states interested in passing or fine-tuning graduated licensing laws, Foss said.

Instead of being punitive, Foss said such laws are designed to support beginning drivers in risk-controlled situations until they gain maturity and experience. Three-tier GDL programs, including Georgia's, include a supervised learner's period, an intermediate license stage and a full-privilege driver's license.

"Driving is a very complex task, and it requires practice, just like playing a musical instrument or learning any other complex skill," Foss said. "You wouldn't just throw your child into the deep end of a swimming pool and say, 'swim.' With GDL, you're moving them slowly out of the nest."

Although Foss criticized elements of Georgia's GDL law, trying to improve it could be risky, warned Joe Parker, director of the North Carolina Governor's Highway Safety Program. Parker's office played a significant role in passing North Carolina's graduated licensing law in 1997.

"Some things in our law probably need changing, too, but we don't want to tinker with it yet, and ours is older than yours," Parker said. "We have legislators --- you can almost name them in advance --- who always oppose highway safety initiatives."

In Georgia, at least four teen-driving bills have been pre-filed for the upcoming legislative session that begins in mid-January and more are expected; all are aimed at reducing carnage on the highways caused by younger drivers.

Among the proposals is one by state Sen. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta), who pre-filed bills that would, among other things, expand the teen-driving curfew to keep 16- and 17-year-old drivers off the road between midnight and 6 a.m.

That may not be restrictive enough, Foss said. He pointed to a recent study indicating one of the most dangerous periods for young teen drivers to be on the road is during the two hours before midnight.

The risk of crashes for unsupervised 16- and 17-year-old drivers is nearly three times as great between 10 p.m. and midnight as during daylight hours, according to a study published in March in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Although the risk per mile driven is even greater after midnight, most of the nighttime driving done by 16- and 17-year-olds occurs before midnight," the study authors noted.

Georgia is not alone in allowing young teens to drive until midnight and beyond, Foss said. Only a handful of states with graduated licensing laws have stricter nighttime restrictions than Georgia's, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Several states have none at all, the federal agency reported.

Proposals to restrict nighttime driving often draw the most criticism, especially from teens, Foss said.

"Even if they don't especially like it, they deal with it," he said. "It doesn't affect much of a young teen's life because it's relatively uncommon for a 16-year-old's trips to occur after 10 p.m."

If a young driver happens to be caught out after the deadline, Foss said, the teen is likely to drive more carefully on the way home.

"If the teen isn't doing anything wrong, he or she won't draw the attention of an officer and won't be stopped, even though they're technically violating the law," he said. "Kids know this."

The benefits of restricting nighttime driving by young teens are enormous, Foss said.

A recent study shows the North Carolina law, which restricts driving by 16-year-olds between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., reduced the rate of crashes for the age group during the restricted hours by almost 50 percent.

Another restriction that has proved to have significant benefits in reducing teen crashes is limiting the number of teenage passengers in the car with a young driver.

"That's where North Carolina's law could use some tweaking," said Foss. North Carolina, like most states with GDL statutes, only limits passengers to the number of seat belts available.

Georgia's law limits the number of teen passengers to three --- but again, studies indicate that may not be enough restriction.

Accident risks to teens mount significantly when young drivers are distracted by peers in the car with them, concluded the authors of the JAMA article, who found that death rates increased proportionately with the number of passengers riding with 16- and 17-year-old drivers.

"The highest death rate . . . was observed among drivers aged 16 years carrying three or more passengers," the authors said.

> ON THE WEB: North Carolina graduated drivers license: www.hsrc.unc.edu/pubinfo/grad_main.htm

University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center: www.hsrc.unc.edu/