Study Shows Graduated Drivers Licensing Means Fewer Accidents for Teens
By Kim Forrest
WASHINGTON–Teenagers who live in states like New Hampshire that force them to go through steps before getting full driving privileges get into fewer accidents, according to a group of studies released recently by the National Safety Council.
At least 38 states, including New Hampshire, have graduated driver licensing, or GDL, and although teens still have the highest rate of collisions, states with GDL have lower teen accident rates. Drivers 16 and 17 years old in New Hampshire must have youth operator s’ licenses before they can get full-privilege licenses. According to one of the studies, New Hampshire has had a GDL program in place since January 1998.
New Hampshire recently fine-tuned some of its driver-education legislation and tightened some policies, giving young drivers some more hurdles to pass before they can gain full driving privileges.
Allan Williams, chief scientist with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, called GDL “a way of phasing young people into full privileges” and said it is important for teens because “driving is not something you learn overnight…. It can have lethal consequences.”
“GDL has been successful, sometimes dramatically successful,” Bill Combs, GDL policy analyst for the National Safety Council, said. “No studies say that it’s not successful or counterproductive, and where it has been instituted, crash rates have gone down. It’s a compellingly simple idea.”
Teen drivers account for the highest rates of fatal collisions. For 16-year-olds, , there were 71 fatal crashes per 100,000 licensed drivers in 2000. For 18-year-olds, the figure was 63 per 100,000. One in five 16-year-old drivers get into a car accident in their first year of driving, especially during their first month.
While the studies did not specifically examine New Hampshire’s driving patterns, the results in other states showed clearly that GDL does lessen accidents.
Pennsylvania’s GDL program, for example, was implemented in 1999 and recorded a 27 percent drop in crashes among 16-year-olds and a 58 percent drop in traffic fatalities in the same age group from 1999 to 2000.
New Hampshire’s law for young drivers changed in January, extending the time that newly licensed young drivers are prohibited from having more than one passenger younger than 25 years old in the car from 90 days to six months, with exceptions for members of the driver’s family or if someone 25 or older is in the vehicle.
The new law allows youth licenses to move up to full-privilege licenses after 13 months of violation-free driving. However, if the teen driver is convicted of any driving offense, the waiting period for a full license is extended until a year after the day of the conviction. Before, a young driver would have a restrictive license for five years, without any extensions for violations.
Teen drivers in New Hampshire are required to have 10 hours of driving time with a driving instructor, six hours of observing another teen driver with an instructor, 20 hours of driving time with a parent or guardian and 30 hours of driver’s education classroom time, Terry Tibbetts, education consultant for driver education for the New Hampshire Department of Education, said.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave New Hampshire an “acceptable” rating for their licensing system, the second-highest of four rankings.
The institute’s Williams said New Hampshire’s licensing system was “not the strongest,” partially because the state prohibits youth licensees from driving only from 1 A.M. to 5 A.M. even though many teen accidents begin earlier in the night.
According to the National Safety Council study, one-third of teen fatal crashes occur between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M., even though only 15 percent of teens’ total mileage is driven during that time. The Insurance Institute said that the “optimal” time for a driving prohibition is 9 or 10 P.M. to 5 A.M.
Robert Rodrigue, an instructor at the Cheshire Driving School in Keene, said that he feels graduated driver licensing is good for the safety of his students. He said that New Hampshire has little by little put into place many of the laws necessary for a good GDL system.
“I think there’s a ton of credibility behind [the studies],” he said. “If you look at [New Hampshire’s] collection of laws, we pretty much have all the pieces.”
Tibbetts said that while laws are important, there are certain things students must learn before being able to drive safely, including communicating with parents and not succumbing to peer pressure while in the car.
“I would like to see young people take responsibility and realize that driving is a lifelong learning process,” he said.
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
