Less teen drivers is a good thing

Thursday, May 30, 2013
We need more restrictions on teen drivers
By Kelvin Wade
From page A11 | May 30, 2013 | 1 Comment

When I was 15 ½ with my learner’s permit, I couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel with Mr. Bailey, my drivers education teacher at Armijo High School.

My most memorable moment was when he had to step on the accelerator on his side of the special drivers ed car to get us going fast enough to enter the flow of traffic on the freeway. I had us creeping along like I was driving Miss Daisy. But when I turned 16, I got my license and my friends and I discovered a world of newfound freedom.

A lot has changed. Back in the day kids couldn’t wait to get their learner’s permits at 15 ½ and license at 16. Today my almost 16 ½-year-old granddaughter is in no rush to get her license and anecdotally, her friends aren’t, either. They seem content to have parents taxi them about. Theo Huxtable’s admonition that “he who walks, walks alone” seems to be lost on this younger generation.

Then along comes Assemblyman Jim Frazier’s AB 1113 that passed the California Assembly on a bipartisan vote and now heads to the Senate. The new law would require teen provisional licenses to remain in effect until the driver is 18, drop the nighttime driving restriction from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m. and raise the passenger age from 20 to 21. The law would also extend the six-month learner’s permit requirement to nine months.

The goal is safety. The No. 1 cause of death for Americans 15 to 20 years old is motor vehicle collisions. Although teens make up 4 percent of California drivers, they’re responsible for two-thirds of all fatal collisions. Yikes!

It was a great rite of passage when I was a teen to get an unrestricted license at 16. It was commonplace when I was a teen for me to drive my friends and younger brother places. It was nothing to pile a bunch of kids in a car and go out for lunch, back when the high schools had open campuses. This time of year saw seniors cutting school, packing cars and heading to Lake Berryessa.

Unfortunately, this time of year when I was a teenager was often the time when teens would get into fatal accidents.

A recent study in a journal of the Association for Psychological Science by scientists from Temple and Duke universities show that teen brains make them especially susceptible to risky behavior in the presence of other teens. I can confirm those studies from some of the insane things I did on the streets of Fairfield in a big 1971 Cadillac to impress/frighten my passengers. Restricting teen drivers from transporting other teens for that first year of driving while they get used to driving is a no-brainer.

A tragic reminder of what can happen occurred this past weekend in the Southern California city of Newport Beach, where five teenagers were killed when the Infiniti with a 17-year-old driver struck a tree at high speed.

Though I still look back on getting my license at 16 as a liberating experience, I’m glad the authorities decided to add restrictions to teen licenses. So I hope the Senate passes the new law and Gov. Jerry Brown signs it.

I feel at ease knowing my granddaughter is being driven places by her parents and not shoehorned into the back of a carload of teens with a freshly minted teen driver at the helm. I want her to have that liberating feeling I had as a new driver, but I’m in no rush. Peace.

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