Study: Nighttime Teen Deaths Up, Cellphone Distraction To Blame Page 2

By Bengt Halvorson

Bengt Halvorson

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U.S. lawmakers to get tougher on teen drivers

Several U.S. Senators have introduced legislation aimed at unifying the rules, which vary widely from state to state, regarding when drivers can get a learner's permit and when that license becomes unrestricted. At this time, there are 42 states that permit teens under 16 to get a learner's permit and seven states that allow a learners permit at 14.

Many of these rules date back decades ago to a time when it was more common for teens to be expected to work—on a family farm, for instance.

The new federal rules would feature three graduated stages of licensing; in the first two, both unsupervised night driving and cellphone use, in any way, wouldn't be allowed.
So-called graduated licensing (GDL) programs have been shown to work. In Massachusetts, there was a 75-percent drop in fatal crashes involving drivers under 18 in the three years following new restrictions for young drivers, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and injury crashes for drivers in that age group fell by 38 percent.

But a lot of the responsibility rests on parents—to set limitations on both car use and cellphone use, and how many friends they can have aboard, and stick to them.

For a summary of your state's nighttime trends and how they relate to the national ones, you'll want to check out the TTI's Teens in the Driver's Seat site, or for more details, the full report.

[Washington Post; Texas Transportation Institute; USA Today]