Teenage Driving Restrictions Study
Teenage Driving Restrictions
Remember when you got your driver’s license? Do you remember the thrill, the excitement and your wonder of the uncertainty of the road? Then there were those few times when you barely escaped an accident…and that time when you were driving through the parking lot heading toward Ferrell’s Ice cream, with the music blaring, and you were singing at the top of your lungs off key, thinking you were cool, when you slammed into a parked police car.....with a police officer inside the car. Wait! That was me.
One of the first steps into adulthood for teenagers is getting that coveted driving permit, and more importantly, the real driver’s license. Add a considerable dose of peer pressure into the mix and that plastic card is viewed by a teenager as the ticket to independence and freedom. (Just don’t do to your teenager what my dad did to me. He knew I was lying, and he also knew I had no sense of direction, so he instructed me to stay away from Bowie, and don’t go down 450 West toward Bowie. Stay away, he said, as I got lost in downtown Peace Cross where half dressed girls were walking late at night, and neon blinking bars were around every corner. Why didn’t I ever listen?)
The combination of hectic schedules, single family households, and all the extra- curricular activities that teens belong to creates pressure on families to let teenagers get a license when it may not be in their best interest. Are the driving tests really designed to determine whether our teenagers are ready for the road?
Historically, teenage drivers have been involved in a disproportionate number of traffic accidents. According to the analysis conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation for AAA, drivers ages 15 to 17 in 2006 were involved in about 974,000 crashes, injuring 406,427 people and killing 2,541. According to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for young drivers aged 15 to 20. Despite the fact that teen drivers account for a small percentage of all drivers, they are involved in a disproportionate number of serious and fatal traffic accidents.
The dangers of teens behind the wheel are further exacerbated by financial costs. According to AAA, accidents involving teen drivers ages 15 to 17 cost us more than $34 billion annually in medical expenses, lost work, property damage, quality of life loss and other related costs in 2006. This figure included $9.8 billion in cost from fatal crashes, with an average cost of $3.841 million per fatality. Injury accidents averaged $50,512, producing a total cost of $20.5 billion. Property damage accidents accounted for the remaining $4.1 billion in cost.
According to Federal Highway Administration, the highest driver fatality rates, as calculated on the basis of estimated annual travel, are found among the youngest and oldest drivers. Compared with the fatality rate for drivers aged 25 through 69 years old, the rate for teenagers is about four times as high and the rate for the oldest group (70 years and older) is almost nine times as high.
State officials are trying to reduce the teenage accident rates through changes in driver licensing. Since 1993, 46 States including Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia implemented the so-called graduated driver licensing (GDL) systems, which address the risks faced by new drivers. This system will first grant our new drivers a learner’s permit, with a supervised practice stage, followed by a provisional license that temporarily restricts unsupervised driving. Commonly imposed restrictions include limits on nighttime driving, limits on the number of passengers in the car, and banning the use of wireless devices. These restrictions are lifted as new drivers gain some experience and get a full licensure.
The Graduated License Program is a proven method of reducing fatal and non-fatal crashes. According to the study conducted on behalf of AAA by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, the rate of fatal crashes of 16-year-olds reduced by eleven percent (per capita) in states with 3-stage GDL programs. The rate of injury accidents in those states was reduced by nineteen percent. Moreover, according to the study, if more states were to implement 5-stage programs, which would provide for additional stages in obtaining a driver’s license, they believe there will be an even greater impact on the reduction of auto accidents among teen drivers.
To learn more about auto accident laws, please click on maryland auto accidents. TO learn more about our lawyers who handle Maryland auto accident law, please click on our firm bio, and read about Roger Greenberg, Andrew Bederman, or Jason Fernandez.
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