Driving laws get tougher for teens

Here’s a heads-up for teenagers who plan to get their California provisional driver’s license next year: Beginning Jan. 1, new drivers will face tougher safety rules that could save lives -- but also put a damper on their social activities.

The changes, recently signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, put tighter restrictions on young motorists’ nighttime driving and their ability to transport other young passengers without an adult in the vehicle.

Next year, young drivers who have had their provisional licenses for less than a year will be prohibited from driving between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Currently, they are allowed to drive until midnight under the state’s original Graduated Driver’s License law, passed in 1997.

In addition, the revised law requires young drivers to have their license for one year before they will be allowed to drive passengers younger than 20 without an adult over age 25 in the vehicle. Currently, the law allows them to drive with friends after having their license for only six months.

Some teens and parents may grumble that the new changes will inconvenience busy families who rely on their teens to drive themselves to and from school and other activities. The 11 p.m. driving curfew may require teens to leave late-night school events early, or -- heaven forbid -- be driven by their parents.

California was the first state to pass a Graduated Driver’s License law designed to reduce the number of vehicle accidents and deaths among teens; 48 other states now have such laws. Teen passengers killed and injured in crashes involving 16-year-old drivers decreased by 40% in the two-year period after the law took effect.

Despite the decrease in crashes, state Assemblyman Bill Maze (R-Visalia), Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia (R-Cathedral) and state Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) began pushing for even tougher measures to curtail the number of deaths and injuries involving young drivers. Maze’s version was eventually signed into law by the governor.

“The number of crashes involving California’s 16-year-old drivers between 11 p.m. and midnight is nearly 13% higher than we would expect when we take into account the amount of driving they do at that hour,” says Steven Bloch, senior research associate at the Auto Club of Southern California.

Bloch, who analyzed California teen crash data, says extending the number of months teens must drive alone or with an adult will help “reduce the number of crash victims.”

A study of California’s initial beginning-driver law and its effect on teen crash rates during the first three years of its implementation estimated that the passenger restriction prevented nearly 700 deaths and injuries. Teen drivers who carried passengers had a much greater risk of causing an accident than teens driving alone, according to the study.

But how truly tough is the law if the penalties for violating it are minimal?

Strengthening the law was an important step to reducing teen accidents, says Rosemary Shahan, executive director of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, a watchdog group based in Sacramento. Ideally, the law “should have even more teeth” to deter teens from skirting the law, she says.

If teens are caught violating the provisions, the penalty for a first offense is a fine of up to $35 or community service under the current law. A second offense would require additional hours of community service and a fine of up to $50.

The provisional driving offenses are “secondary” ones, which means officers can cite violators only if they have been stopped for another offense.

Speier had proposed a bill that would have allowed police to stop teens suspected of violating driving laws and ticket parents who knowingly allow their teenagers to violate the rules. The bill was unsuccessful. Critics thought it was too punitive.

But strict enforcement may be the best way to make sure young drivers are safe. It’s like the seat belt laws, Shahan says: Compliance increased once it became a primary law that allows police to stop motorists solely for not buckling up.

The California DMV took 8,083 actions against teen provisional license violations from July 2004 through June 2005, according to agency spokesman Steve Haskins.

Among the actions included license suspensions, terminations, probations and license reinstatements.

Jeanne Wright can be reached at jeanrite@aol.com.