Posted on: Wednesday, March 24, 2004

EDITORIAL
16-year-old drivers must pay some dues

Before all you teenagers and, perhaps, parents of teenagers balk at a bill that would raise the age of full driving privileges to 17, consider some of the damage young drivers around the country have done to themselves and others in this month alone.

Breakfast at Detroit's Omega Coney Island restaurant on Friday turned tragic when an 18-year-old lost control of his Plymouth Voyager minivan and crashed into the busy eatery. The driver, who had just been accepted to computer design school, died in the wreck.

The previous Friday, a 14-year-old took a spin in a parking lot in Oak Park, Ill., and struck three cars and two poles. No one was injured but a lot of people were mad.

The week before that, a 16-year-old was injured after veering off a highway in Upstate New York while rounding a curve and hit three trees and a utility pole.

Meanwhile in Hawai'i early on March 14, four teenagers were injured when the pickup truck they were riding in hit a wooden fence and utility pole on Kamehameha Highway in front of the Polynesian Cultural Center. Also, a 17-year-old-driver on the Big Island was killed when his Chevy Blazer veered off the road into a grove of trees.

Granted, adults can be lousy drivers, but the probability of a teenager driving dangerously because of inexperience, panic or poor judgment is a lot higher. Those high insurance rates don't come out of nowhere.

As reported by Mike Leidemann of The Advertiser, national statistics show that while teens make up only 15 percent of those who drive between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., they make up more than 30 percent of those involved in fatal crashes during those hours.

The risk is highest between the ages of 16 and 19, according to the Institute for Highway Safety.

So let's look at how this bill works and if it makes sense, shall we? As it is, teenagers can get a permit at 15 and a full driver's license at 16 if they have completed driver's ed.

But the proposed legislation would create a "provisional" or intermediate level between the learner permit and the full license. After completing an approved driver-education course, 16-year-olds would qualify for a provisional license. If they drive responsibly on that license for at least six months, they would qualify for a full driver's license at 17.

Holders of a provisional license would be barred from driving late at night unless accompanied by a parent or guardian and could not carry more than a certain number of young passengers at a time. Exemptions would probably be made for teenagers going to and from work or school.

In much of Europe, the legal driving age is 18. Besides, a similar graduated driver's licensing program is operating in at least 43 states in the union and has contributed to a drop in crashes involving 16-year-old drivers.

If we don't trust them to vote, drink alcohol or join the military, why do we give 16-year-olds carte blanche behind the steering wheel? Let's not forget that driving is a privilege, not a right.