Some Teens Take License With Driving Privileges

When the school day ends at St. Mary’s Academy in Inglewood, Juliet Gurrola hits the parking lot. She takes off her schoolgirl oxfords in favor of black Skechers tennies. Then she scales her parents’ timeworn ’87 Jeep Cherokee.

In regulation pleated skirt and pressed white blouse, the 5-foot-3 18-year-old looks the part of an anti-criminal. But when Gurrola turns the key, the law says she turns into a menace.

Gurrola is part of a growing population on the streets of Southern California: unlicensed teen-age drivers. Their numbers have soared, officials say, because of the virtual elimination of free high school driver-training courses, the high cost of training and insuring a young driver, and a law that took effect this year requiring proof of legal residency for license-seekers.

“I was waiting till I reached 18 so I didn’t have to go through driver training,” says Gurrola, who still plans to get her license this year. “That’s $200 I didn’t have to spend.”

She’s driven without so much as an illegal-U-turn ticket since she was 12, Gurrola says proudly, although she acknowledges that she’s had a few mishaps.

Others haven’t been so lucky.

On June 1, a car driven by an unlicensed 15-year-old collided with two other vehicles in Santa Clarita, killing the teen and her two passengers. Three months earlier, a car driven by an unlicensed 18-year-old collided with another vehicle in Sun Valley. His teen-age passenger, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the car and killed.

But to many teen-agers, it remains a game.

“I got caught driving without a license two months ago,” says an East Los Angeles high school senior who is still without a license. “I have to pay $81.” A minute later, she drives off in her old convertible with two passengers. A nearby school police officer surveys the scene.

Adds 18-year-old driver Karen Cardona of East L.A., “I’ve never even been to the DMV.”

Rudy Parker, coordinator for driver education at the Los Angeles Unified School District, estimates that the number of teen-agers in district schools who forgo licensing has increased by 60% over the past two years. “They don’t have the money to pay for driver training,” he says, “so they drive illegally.”

The state quit funding driver training--the actual behind-the-wheel component--in 1990, leading the Los Angeles school district and most others to discontinue the driving lessons, which are required for under-18 license-seekers. So students must turn to for-profit driving schools, which charge $225 and up for classroom education and training.

In addition, a law that went into effect in the spring requires proof of legal residency before licenses are issued. “We see illegal alien kids come into court,” L.A. juvenile traffic Judge David Searcy says. “They say, ‘I can’t get a license. I’m here illegally.’ That’s the end of it. They’re going to go out and drive some more.”

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The costs of insurance (about $860 and up), registration (2% of a car’s value), and permit and license ($24--the bargain of the process), authorities say, have also fed the surge in unlicensed teen-agers.

While the teen-age population remained about the same from 1981 to 1991, the percentage of licensed drivers 16 to 19 fell nearly a third, according to the most recent DMV statistics. Experts say there are as many as 2 million unauthorized drivers in the state--one of every 10 motorists--although no one is sure how many are teen-agers. Says DMV spokesman Evan Nossoff: “The number of licensed teen drivers continues to decline.”

Last year the California Highway Patrol logged a 7% increase over 1992 in the number of citations given to those who have never held a license. Judges can fine unlicensed drivers from $81 to $675. With repeat offenders, the DMV can deny licensing into their adult years.

Unlicensed drivers are also causing a majority of hit-and-run accidents in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central and Valley traffic divisions, officers say. Some of those arrested are teen-agers. “Mom says it’s OK to drive,” a Valley traffic officer says. “These people don’t care.”

Troubled by unlicensed drivers who flout the system, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) authored a law that mandates confiscation of an unlicensed driver’s own car the second time he or she is caught driving it. “The bill came from a frustration in watching all the attempts in the past several years, including fines,” Katz says, “and all these things seemed to have no impact.”

A law authored by state Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) picks up where Katz’s leaves off. It allows 30-day impoundment of any car used by an unlicensed driver, regardless of who owns it. “The bill is based upon the inordinate amount of injury, damage and death on California roadways caused by unlicensed drivers,” Kopp says. Both laws take effect Jan. 1.

The LAUSD’s Parker say restoring state money for driver training is a better solution.

Parker backs a suit against the state, filed by the nonprofit California Assn. for Safety Education and now being weighed by a state appellate court. It accuses Sacramento of collecting money for a driver-training fund (through traffic tickets), then diverting it to the state’s general fund. It demands that the money be put back into driver training. “The kids have been shortchanged,” Parker says. “They want to drive--they just don’t have the money to pay for it.”

Deputy Atty. Gen. Shellyanne Chang counters that “the Legislature and the governor have joint legislative authority” to spend traffic-ticket money on any state program they deem most needy.

In the meantime, association President James M. Lewis says: “We’re creating a generation of outlaws.”

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The children of immigrants seem to be especially hard-hit by the costs of driving. They often must work while bearing the traditional responsibility of driving parents to their chores and serving as their guides to the outside world--as Juliet Gurrola has done. “We needed her to drive,” says her dad, Alfonso Gurrola, a carpet layer.

She saw no reason to lay out the money for driving lessons, because she’d been behind the wheel for years. Now she drives with a permit in pocket, but she admits that she doesn’t always have a licensed driver 18 or older next to her--as the permit requires.

Juliet Gurrola has been in two minor accidents. During a warm afternoon cruising around Inglewood (which included a close call with a tiny car whose driver tried to cut her off), she recalled the worst of the two mishaps.

She had just dropped a friend off after soccer practice on a cold, dark eve in January. A white Mustang had stopped suddenly in front of her at an Inglewood intersection. Gurrola, following too closely in her parents’ clunky old Datsun, traded paint with the Ford.

The other driver told her he had no insurance; Gurrola had no license. Her father paid the driver $40 for his trouble--a mangled muffler. The Datsun lost a headlight.

Later that night, “My mom said she would never let me drive again,” Gurrola says. “But I convinced her.”

Wheels of Fortune

Here are some of the costs of getting a teen-age driver on the road legelly:

Annual insurance

* State Farm offers this scenario: A family of three lives in Torrance and owns a 1993 Pontiac Bonneville and a 1986 Ford Escort. Full coverage for the good-driving mother and father is set at $1,989.38. Adding a 16-year-old son as a fully insured occasional driver on the Escort would cost as extra $1,577.38. If the child is a 16-year-old girl, the family’s insurance would go up by $860.02.

* Under the state-approved California Automobile Assigned Risk Plan, minimum liability insurance costs about $1,450 for a male under 25 and $1,280 for a female under 21. This does not cover the driver’s car. This program for high-risk drivers is available through many brokers. They are not allowed to charge additional fees.

Driver education and training

* $225 and up for both. Driver training alone can cost $145 and up. (Many school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, still offer driver education--the classroom component--for free.)

Car registration for a new owner

* 2% of the car’s value. Required smog checks start at about $22.

Permit and license fees

* $12 each