| GWINNETT | |
Town hall meeting: Legal provisions can do only so much, most participants agreed.
Duane D. Stanford - Staff
Saturday, December 16, 2000
With talk of stricter teen driving laws filling the pre-legislative air this year, Pete Toggerson says he doesn't need the General Assembly to tell him how to keep his teenagers alive.
If he finds out his son is driving foolishly, there will be no due process.
"His license is out 90 days," Toggerson said. "He takes the big yellow cheese to school."
Toggerson spoke out Thursday night at one of four metro Atlanta town hall meetings about teen driving. About 300 people attended the forums, organized by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in Gwinnett, Cobb, Fayette and DeKalb counties. Parents, teens, state legislators and professionals talked about ways to reduce the number of teen accidents.
Among the more than 60 parents and dozen teenagers in attendance at Meadowcreek High School near Norcross, most agreed --- in fact, insisted --- that parents have to set limits on their teens. Laws go only so far, they say.
Toggerson says the state's teen driving restrictions are worthwhile, but parents don't have to wait for the state to pull their children's licenses for bad driving.
"Am I going to let my kid have a BMW he's going to wrap around a tree? No," added Toggerson. "Why do we do those things?"
Pat Van House, a Peachtree Corners mother of a 17-year-old girl and a 19-year-old boy, agrees that parents have to have resolve. But she says it's difficult.
"We get sucked into this idea that somehow we have to do what everyone else is doing, that you have to be your kid's best friend," said Van House, who has required her children to log 140 hours of learner's permit driving before getting their full licenses.
Bill Patterson of Snellville knows the pain inexperienced drivers can cause. Patterson lost his teenage son last year after he was hit in his car by a young driver who took a turn too fast on Ross Road near U.S. 78.
Patterson sat quietly through Thursday's town hall meeting as a panel made up of a traffic accident investigator, a parent, a teenage student and an insurance professional answered questions from participants.
Karen Beach, a mother of two teenagers, emphasized that parents aren't required to let their teenagers drive at 16. In fact, learner's permits are good for two years, it was pointed out.
"Parents need to take back the right to say no," Beach said. "Driving is not a right. It is a privilege, and we should keep it that way."
Several parents suggested that the state make student drivers log a certain number of hours with an adult driver before being allowed to have a license.
"I think a mandatory 50 hours would be an excellent idea," said teen panelist Carrie Hanley, who also likes curfews for teenagers.
Parents suggested that driver's education be mandatory as well. Others complained that the classes were expensive --- as much as $250 for a school-based class. Panelists countered that parents can make up the fee through insurance discounts.
Sgt. Randy Lane, who heads up the accident investigation unit for the Gwinnett County Police Department, said he believes driver's education should be mandatory. Still, he said, driver's education has to be coupled with additional experience in all kinds of conditions.
"To issue a 15-year-old child a learner's license, allow him to drive a few months with Mom or Dad and put him out on the road is ridiculous," Lane said.
Most seemed to agree that simply raising the driving age, as parents and lawmakers have also suggested, is not the best solution. Older teenagers can be just as inexperienced without the right training.
Brian Luders, the parent panelist, maintains a Web site devoted to teen driving issues, and he, too, believes parents have to take responsibility for their teens' driving education.
Luders has taken his son on a two-hour drive to the Carolinas, and he recently spent a half-hour driving with him backward in a church parking lot to build the boy's driving experience.
"This is a quantity type issue," Luders said.