Restrictions Drive Home Valid Point

No less an authority than Bruce Springsteen once said that rock and roll is chiefly concerned with two great subjects.

The first, of course, is love . . . which is, as the Beatles testified, all you need.

The second is the automobile. Not needed, perhaps, but nice to have.

Fast cars, usually. Little deuce coupes are cool. So are T-Birds, hot rod Lincolns and pink Cadillacs. And little red Corvettes.

To sing of cars, of course, is to sing of freedom. Nothing has emancipated America’s youth quite like the automobile. It hardly seems a coincidence that rock and roll and our modern car culture all came of age together, right along with us boomers.

It was fun, fun, fun while it lasted. But now, in a continuing crackdown on adolescence, Gov. Pete Wilson has signed legislation that will impose a new set of restrictions on teenage motorists.

Tough luck for the Class of 2001.

*

Let us cruise down Memory Lane and relive those heady days of yesteryear when you and your friends would pile into a car--no adults allowed--and head out to the beach or the movies or a party. Or maybe you’d just cruise for the joy of cruising.

I was 15 but my best friend was 16. John’s parents let him drive an old ’62 Ford Galaxie with a million miles on the odometer. The Jet, we called it. Just about every summer night we were out goofing around, listening to cassettes and looking for girls, if not quite knowing what to do about them. Well, I didn’t, anyway.

This sort of cruising will be illegal come next July. How strict is the new law? Consider: For six months after obtaining a license, a teenager may not carry passengers under the age of 20 unless someone over 25 is present.

And there’s more:

* For a year after becoming licensed, teenagers may not drive between midnight and 5 a.m. without a passenger who is at least 25. This restriction will not be enforced if the trip is necessary for work, school, family or medical reasons.

* Drivers younger than 18 must hold a learner’s permit for six months, compared with the 30 days now required. Parents and guardians will be expected to spend 50 hours driving with their child, including 10 hours at night.

These laws, it has been reported, will only be enforced by police if a driver is pulled over for another violation, such as speeding or running a red light. The penalty could be a fine of as much as $50 or an order to perform 24 hours of community service.

Fortunately, these laws aren’t retroactive.

I had had my driver’s license for only two weeks when I got my first ticket. I was in Mom’s Dodge Dart and this time John was the passenger. We’d been playing pinball at the bowling alley and now we were on a busy street, waiting in a left turn lane at an intersection without a traffic light. It was winter and the rain had stopped falling, but the road was a little damp.

We were waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Finally there was an opening. But I hesitated and then it was too late. John couldn’t have been impressed.

“Shoulda gone,” I said, feeling like a wimp.

So we waited some more. And now I was determined not to wimp out.

Finally, there was a little space.

I gunned the accelerator as I whipped the steering wheel to the left. For a fraction of a second I was panicked as tires spun in place, peeling rubber. Finally I had traction and made it across, my heart pounding. Whew.

Then I heard the siren. It seems I had made this maneuver right in front of an oncoming police car.

The cop seemed amused as he wrote me up. My parents were not amused at all.

*

Back in the early ‘70s, there were probably hundreds of occasions that I engaged in automotive behavior that, nine months from now, would be considered illegal. Is it fair that today’s teenagers will be denied the freedom we once had? Well, no.

Then again, it seems even more amazing that such laws weren’t adopted long ago. Once upon a time, we relied on the cautionary film “Red Asphalt” to scare us into driving safely. “Deadman’s Curve,” already a golden oldie in my teens, had a similar moral. But it didn’t stop me from finding out if the old Dart could top 100 mph. (It could.)

We all remember how much fun it was--often stupid, dangerous fun--and that is why the Teen Driver Safety Act is becoming so popular. California is the 18th state to adopt such restrictions, precisely because so many of us are now able to look back with some amazement that we’re still alive to tell these tales.

Teenagers, we know from experience, have a foolish knack of thinking that they are immortal. So now we cheer the news that teen driving restrictions have been credited with saving lives in states where it has been enacted. Pennsylvania reported a 69% drop in wrecks that kill or injure minors, while Maryland reported a 40% drop.

Teenagers, of course, will say that the new law “sucks.” Now more than ever, they seem to regard access to an automobile as a birthright. Acquiring a driver’s license is still an important rite of passage--and yet, as teens take it for granted, it seems that the car may be losing some of its mystique.

Maybe I’m just getting too old, but right now I can’t think of any great car or driving song of recent vintage. Maybe it’s just hard to be inspired by a Honda Accord. Oh, I vaguely recall some rap about drive-bys, but that really has more to do with our gun culture, doesn’t it?

There may be another reason cars are taken for granted. Outside the window of our Chatsworth newsroom, I’ve spent the last few months watching the old Winnetka 6 Drive-In come down and a new 20-screen megaplex rise in its place.

Which reminds me of another night in the Dodge Dart when I was 16 years old. . . .

*

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.