Many Teenagers Decry Driving Bill

Honestly, says 18-year-old Cody Cullen, it’s hard enough being a teenager these days, balancing yourself on the dizzying cusp of adulthood while many parents and teachers still insist on treating you like a kid.

They already make too many decisions for you: You can’t legally drink until you’re 21, or vote until you’re 18. There are curfews and restrictions and stern advice to pick the right college quickly if you know what’s good for you.

But this time the adults have gone too far. They’re messing with one of the few real freedoms a teenager has left--the right to drive a car by your lonesome, to offer a friend a ride home after school, to roll down the windows and laugh together as your hair billows in the breeze or, even more important, to stretch a hot date past the Cinderella hour of midnight.

A bill sailing through Sacramento would impose a series of new restrictions on some teenage drivers in an effort to cut down on lax driving habits and traffic accidents, which are the No. 1 killer of teenagers nationwide.

Earlier this week, the state Senate passed the driving bill by a 29-0 vote. It covers young drivers with learner’s permits and 16- and 17-year-old drivers, who are now issued provisional licenses allowing them to drive a motor vehicle alone, with certain restrictions.

Based on a similar Canadian law that legislators credit with a 55% reduction in teenage driving deaths, the Senate bill would impose limits on new drivers carrying passengers under the age of 20 or driving between midnight and 5 a.m. (Some exceptions would be made, including drivers going to work.) If passed by the Assembly and signed by Gov. Pete Wilson, it will become law July 1, 1998.

Students like Cullen call the law just another roadblock imposed by adults. He was particularly irked by comments from one legislator that the rules were being imposed on teenagers “because we love them.”

“It’s all bull,” said the Santa Monica High School senior, who already has his license. “Once again, adults are trying to save us from ourselves. It’s just another version of the old lie that ‘This is going to hurt me more than it does you.’

“Too bad there aren’t any 16-year-olds in that Senate. They would have voted this thing down for sure,” he said.

“It’s hard enough being a teenager,” added another Santa Monica student, 17-year-old Julissa Gonzalez. “What are you gonna tell your date come prom night? ‘I’ll meet you at the party’? What a nightmare that would be. Why don’t they just try treating us like adults for once?”

If passed, the law would be among the nation’s most restrictive for new drivers. For the first six months under a provisional license, for example, a teenager could not transport passengers under age 20 unless accompanied by a parent or other licensed driver at least 25 years old--with certain exceptions for family-, medical-, work- and school-related necessities.

In their first year, provisional license holders would be barred from driving between midnight and 5 a.m. except with a parent or other licensed driver at least age 25. The law would also require a beginner to train behind the wheel at least 50 hours; there is no such rule now.

Also, new drivers would have to keep that learner’s permit for six months instead of the present 30 days before applying for a provisional driver’s license. Penalties for violating the new rules would involve fines and community work.

Teenagers across Los Angeles this week called the rules a move in the wrong direction that would discourage young drivers from car-pooling and, worse yet, from having designated drivers ferry drinkers home after parties.

“It’s going to be bad for the environment, a bunch of teens driving around by themselves because the cops won’t let them ride together,” said Abby Carasco, 16, a Santa Monica High student.

Tyeisha Parker, 16, had a more personal reason for opposing the rules: It’s lonely driving alone.

“That’s crazy!” she said while waiting at a Department of Motor Vehicles office near Exposition Park. “What are you supposed to do, drive around by yourself? That’s the main reason to get a car--to drive your friends around and go crazy. . . . That’s not fair.”

Waiting to take his driving test, Martin Magana, 18, was irked at the nighttime driving restriction because, as he says, the fun of driving your own car only starts after midnight. “If you want to take your girlfriend out, you don’t want your parents there!” he said.

In the San Fernando Valley, Calabasas High School senior Dan Tochterman, 18, said the bill unfairly targets teens.

“Accidents result from inexperience, not immaturity,” he said. “Anyone who is a new driver should have restrictions put on them, no matter what age they are.”

But some young drivers said the rules could help save teenagers who drive recklessly--especially nocturnal drag-racers or those who pay less attention to the road while chauffeuring a carload of friends.

Santa Monica High senior Roxanne Osco said the new rules would make many students better drivers.

“When I was 16, I know I was a pretty bad driver,” she said. “I just wasn’t used to being behind the wheel of a car. I was just so nervous trying to remember all the things I had to do, I had no time to be a defensive driver, to watch out for that other guy. Maybe these new rules will help.”

Jose Sarco, 18, admitted that he has driven under the influence of alcohol because of peer pressure.

“It’s a fair law,” he said soberly. “I wish it was around when I was younger. To me, it’s needed, because a lot of young people are getting injured. It’s easier for them to have peer pressure and then get hurt. People drive too crazy.”

Calabasas junior Sarah Mulligan, 17, knows that firsthand.

“I got into two car accidents the first two weeks after I got my license. They were both my fault completely,” she said, adding that both times friends in the car distracted her. “In one of the accidents, my friend popped out my cigarette lighter and it dropped on my leg.”

As Mulligan stepped into her brand-new Honda Civic, she explained that she got the car in December after totaling another auto in a third accident.

“It wasn’t my fault,” she said of the incident in which a van struck her car, leaving her with a concussion and broken leg. “But if I had more experience, I might not have been driving so fast, and I might have driven more defensively.”

Times correspondent Matea Gold contributed to this story.