Indiana already is making teenagers wait longer before they can get a license and drive a car with absolute freedom.
But if the laws in Indiana were a bit stricter, then each year an additional 49 lives and $300 million could be saved, according to a study promoting comprehensive graduated driver’s license laws throughout the country.
The study, conducted by the Allstate Foundation and the National Safety Council, suggests that graduated driver’s license regulations would save 2,000 lives and more than $38 billion in the U.S.
It’s the latest research in a string of studies that suggest putting more restrictions on young and novice drivers – who are more likely to die from a car wreck – will save lives and prevent crashes.
“One of the reasons teen crash rates have fallen sharply over the last dozen years has been graduated licensing programs,” said Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, an organization based in Virginia.
In Indiana, the minimum age someone can get a license is 16 years and 6 months, as long as he or she has taken driver’s education.
Even then, that teen’s driver’s license is considered probationary, meaning he or she cannot drive after 10 p.m. for the first six months and can only have family members in the vehicle. When those six months are up, teens cannot drive by themselves after 11 p.m. on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends until they are 18.
If someone does not take driver’s education, the earliest he can get a probationary license is 16 years and 9 months.
“I think it’s a great law and a great start,” said Betti Bradtmiller, vice president of Safeway Driving School in Fort Wayne.
“We would like to see it even a little more strict.”
The Allstate Foundation’s and National Safety Council’s study suggested seven components to effective graduated driver’s license laws, with only New York and Delaware employing all seven.
These components involve having:
a minimum age of 16 for a learner’s permit
- six months before unsupervised driving
- a minimum of 30 hours supervised driving during learner’s stage
- intermediate licensing at age 16 1/2 minimum
- intermediate nighttime driving restriction beginning no later than 10 p.m
- no more than one non-family passenger for intermediate license holders
- minimum age 17 for a full license.
Of that list, Indiana’s difference is in the minimum age for obtaining a learner’s permit, currently 15 years and 6 months. Come Jan. 1, though, that will change to 15 years as long as the teen is enrolled in a driver’s education program.
“That gives them an extra six months of practice,” said Bradtmiller, who is in favor of the change. “They’ll have a year and a half of supervised driving under their belt by the time they get their license.”
But others suggest the longer teens wait for learner’s permits and driver’s licenses, the safer for everyone.
A 2010 study done by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety found that delaying the learning permit or driver’s license age resulted in fewer fatal crashes among 15- to 17-year-olds.
“The longer teens wait, the better,” Radar said. “Both for the permit and the license.”
Others, though, still feel experience is the key to safer driving.
Allen County Sheriff Ken Fries has long sought funds to build a driving course to go along with his agency’s new shooting range on Paulding Road.
This course, he has said, would be used specifically so teens could get road experience without endangering other drivers.
“We have to build up their skills,” Fries said. “If you think about your own experience, we’ve probably all gone off the right side of the road when we’re young. Most of us learn how to deal with it by having it happen, and luckily we didn’t die.”
And while statistics show that teen driving deaths have steadily dropped – possibly somewhat due to graduated driver’s license laws as well as safer cars, according to experts – it’s still U.S. teens’ No. 1 cause of death.
But a combination of more education, more experience and more supervised time behind the wheel could cause teen driving deaths to continue on a steady decline in the years to come.
“I think education helps so much, because driving is probably the most dangerous thing a teenager does, when you think about it,” Bradtmiller said.
