High Costs Force Teen-Age Drivers to Stay off the Road : Traffic: Decline in number of licenses is linked to insurance rates and loss of free training in schools.

For California teen-agers, a driver’s license has long symbolized maturity and provided a passport to freedom in the land of freeways and endless suburbs. But growing numbers of 16- to 19-year-olds are now forgoing--or at least delaying--this rite of passage.

Even though the size of California’s teen-age population has remained virtually unchanged over the last decade, the number of licensed teen-agers has dropped by 18.6%, from more than 1 million in 1981 to 838,408 last year, according to state Department of Motor Vehicles statistics.

Today only half of California’s teen-agers have licenses, while three out of five did a decade ago.

The decline in teen-age driving, experts say, has resulted from a variety of factors, including the high costs of owning and insuring automobiles and the virtual disappearance of free driver’s training in public schools.

The trend is having an impact on accident rates and insurance costs of many families, not to mention the lifestyles of thousands of youngsters.

“It’s a real drag not to drive. You can’t go to the beach or anywhere,” said Carla Renteria, a 16-year-old student at Los Angeles’ Garfield High School.

Like many California teen-agers today, Renteria does not frequent drive-in restaurants or outdoor movie theaters. She has never gone cruising down the Sunset Strip, and she has not practiced the age-old ritual of getting her learner’s permit at 15 1/2 and her license the moment she turned 16. Because she cannot afford the costs associated with driving, she will wait until at least her 18th birthday to get a license.

“It’s amazing when you think of the role that cars have played in the lives of so many teen-agers in California,” said Willard Huyck, one of the co-writers of “American Graffiti,” a 1973 film about the teen-age car culture. “I remember in the early 1960s when I went to Taft High School, which was then a brand new high school in the San Fernando Valley, the first thing they did was build a parking lot across the street for the kids.”

Today many urban schools no longer have student parking lots. One reason may be that most inner-city schools are increasingly populated with immigrant students whose families are reluctant to let them drive, said Bruce E. Cain, a professor of political science at UC Berkeley.

The overall decline is not, as some experts have speculated, a result of a population drop. According to the census, there was less than a 1% reduction in the number of 16- to 19-year-olds living in the state during the 1980s.

And the trend among teen-agers runs contrary to that of adults, for whom there has been a 25% rise in driver’s licenses over the past decade.

Because teen-agers continue to be the most dangerous drivers on the road, “it is probably not surprising” that the number of fatalities and injuries has dropped with teen-age licenses, said Patricia A. Romanowicz, a DMV research analyst.

In 1980, according to data collected by the California Highway Patrol and analyzed by the DMV, teen-agers made up nearly 7% of all California drivers and were driving in nearly 17% of fatal and injury accidents. By 1990, California’s teen-agers represented slightly less than 5% of the state’s drivers and were involved as drivers in less than 12% of accidents.

Some experts speculate that there may be even greater declines in teen-age driving over the next few years as the further impact of cuts in driver’s training are felt throughout the state.

Beginning in 1990, the state stopped allocating funds to school districts for driver training. As of this summer, officials said, nearly all the state’s more than 1,000 school districts had either eliminated free behind-the-wheel training or started charging students $130 to $160 for training programs.

By law, public schools must continue to offer driver’s education courses in the classroom.

Commercial driving schools also offer classroom education and behind-the-wheel training. But, with fees typically ranging from $300 to $600, they are out of the reach of many families.

Youngsters who have completed classroom and behind-the-wheel training can take a written exam and driving test from the DMV at age 16. Those who learn to drive on their own must wait until 18 to be licensed.

“The cuts appear to have caused many youngsters to put off getting their licenses until their 18th birthdays or even later,” said Rudy Parker, driver’s education supervisor for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

When the district began offering $130 training programs this summer, only about 300 students signed up. The district used to train between 3,000 and 4,000 students each summer.

“No way my mom will shell out $150 or whatever it costs,” said Maria Tinajero, a 16-year-old Garfield student. “I’ll have to let my friends teach me to drive, but I know I’ll just have to wait until I’m 18 to get my license.”

Other states that have eliminated free driver’s training in public schools have also seen substantial drops in the number of licensed teen-agers, said Jefferson Keith, executive director of the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Assn. in Maryland. “That’s been the pattern in Florida, Colorado, New York, Washington.”

Besides the cost, driver’s training programs were eliminated because insurance and transportation experts questioned their effectiveness in reducing serious accidents.

Studies by the U.S. Department of Transportation have shown that youngsters who had formal training are somewhat more skilled behind the wheel, yet they are also more likely to get their licenses earlier.

“No matter how much training they have had, the younger people drive, the more likely they are to be involved in accidents,” said Ardian K. Lund of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Washington.

“Society must decide whether the increased mobility of teen-agers is a sufficient benefit to offset lost lives and increased injuries,” he said. “I think the trade-off is a bad one.”

Other experts--and some parents--are not so certain.

“It’s worrisome to think what the future may hold without driver’s training,” said Leanna Depue, director of the Missouri Safety Center at Central Missouri State University. “We’re reverting back to the notion that (teaching driving) is the parents’ responsibility. And that may not be such a good idea. After all, you’re giving a teen-ager a 3,000-pound weapon.”

Parents, Depue said, are not trained to teach driving and family automobiles do not have safety features such as dual controls.

Another factor causing the drop in teen-age licenses may be the cost of insurance, which can rise from several hundred to several thousand dollars a year when teen-agers are permitted to drive the family car.

In the recession, some parents are engaging in “some pretty creative things to get around the cost of letting their kids behind the wheel,” said Steve Krimitz, an analyst in the DMV’s forecasting unit.

“I know one woman who found out it would cost $2,100 just to add her 17-year-old to her policy,” he said. “Not to buy him a car, just to give him the privilege of driving her car once in a while.”

To avoid those premiums, the woman claims that her son is living at another address. Thus, if her son does drive the car and gets in an accident, she hopes he will be covered by her insurance, just like any acquaintance who borrows her car.

For those teen-agers whose parents will not let them drive, life can be burdensome. Who takes you to the movies at night? Who takes you to a ballgame on the weekend?

Having their teen-agers do without driver’s licenses can also be a hardship on parents, especially those who want their children to work.

“I can’t afford to let my daughter drive, but it’s tough not letting her,” said Espanola Campbell, a management assistant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center who lives with her two daughters, Mercedes, 10, and Anjaliec, 16, in South-Central Los Angeles.

“Anjaliec had a job this winter at Disneyland through First AME Church. It was a great opportunity for her,” said Campbell. “They provided transportation to and from the church. But she worked the late shift and got home at 12:30 at night, which was way too late for her to take the bus home, so I had to get up every night and drive her. By the end of the summer, I was exhausted.”

Now, she said, her daughter hopes to get a job at a Disney Store, but Campbell has no idea how she will get her there.

The RTD has mounted a campaign in Los Angeles to get more young riders on the city bus system. For $18 a month, a student can get a pass to ride anytime anywhere. Last fiscal year, 78,000 passes were used on an average school day.

But many Los Angeles teen-agers say that, like adults, they think automobiles are far more convenient. Indeed, some teen-agers are so desperate to drive cars that they are doing so without valid licenses.

Last year, the California Highway Patrol issued 124,875 citations to unlicensed drivers, 60% more than the number of tickets issued in 1982. Although the CHP does not keep data on the age of unlicensed drivers, many parents, school officials and youngsters say illegal driving among teen-agers may be on the rise.

“Time was when most people didn’t dare drive without a license,” said Garfield instructor Don Hastings, who has taught driver’s education and coached football for 27 years. “Now, when I ask my classes how many kids are driving (without licenses), at least a third of them raise their hands.”

“Everybody does it,” said student Cindy Meza, a 16-year-old at Garfield who does not drive. To prove her point, she and friends recently flagged down students they suspected of driving without licenses. In most cases, they were right.

“You can tell the ones who don’t have licenses by the way they drive--all crazy. And by what they drive--real junk,” said student Maria Tinajero.

Most teen-agers caught driving without licenses are stopped because their cars are not registered or have something mechanically wrong with them, said Bob Tafoya, head referee for the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Juvenile Traffic Section.

A person under 18 who is found driving without a license can be fined as much as $250. Parents, employers or other adults who allow unlicensed teen-agers to drive can be held liable for accident damages.

Those who are over 18 and unlicensed can be fined up to $1,000 and sent to County Jail for up to six months.

Teen-Age Drivers

Drivers between 16 and 19 are by far the most dangerous on the road. As the number of teen-age drivers has declined over the past decade, so has their involvement in accidents resulting in deaths and injuries.

Year % of total drivers % involved in injury accidents 1980 6.96 16.52 1981 6.34 15.72 1982 6.03 14.52 1983 5.87 13.87 1984 5.21 13.57 1985 4.91 13.34 1986 4.85 13.61 1987 5.01 13.52 1988 4.98 13.00 1989 4.85 12.34 1990 4.68 11.52

Licensed to Drive

The number of Californians between 16 and 19 who are licensed to drive automobiles has declined by 18.6% over the past decade, while the number of all drivers in the state has grown by 25%, from 16,046,252 to 20,066,027.

1980: 1,049,500 1981: 1,029,897 1982: 967,923 1983: 933,477 1984: 861,577 1985: 855,143 1986: 881,604 1987: 925,031 1988: 882,703 1989: 921,798 1990: 860,636 1991: 838,409