More Rules for Young Drivers?: AAA Study Spurs Groups to Get Tough on Teens
By Steve Painter, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.
Jan. 19–TOPEKA – Highway and child safety groups are pushing Kansas lawmakers for tighter rules on teen drivers, an effort that has failed in recent years.
A study released Wednesday by AAA, a highway travel advocacy group, shows that teen drivers were involved in accidents claiming 470 lives in Kansas from 1995 through 2004.
Kansas’ laws governing teen drivers are considered among the weakest in the nation, allowing learning permits for drivers as young as 14 and providing no intermediate step between the permit and the full-privilege driver’s license.
“It’s clear from this analysis that we have to approach the issue of teen driver safety in a different way,” said Jim Hanni, executive vice president of AAA Kansas.
The AAA wants states to require teens to be 18 before they receive a driver’s license without restrictions. Kansas issues unrestricted licenses at age 16.
It’s unlikely that Kansas would raise the age above 16, said Sen. Les Donovan, R-Wichita, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.
“We’re not going to change it when you’ve got kids working on the farm,” he said.
Child advocacy groups are not optimistic. They’ve tried for years to pass a law requiring booster seats for 4- to 8-year-olds and mandatory seat belt use by teens in the back seat.
“We know that we have to do something for teens. The statistics bear that out,” said Cindy D’Ercole, government relations director for Kansas Action for Children.
The 10-year analysis of crashes involving teen drivers completed by the AAA showed that 192, or 40 percent, of the Kansas deaths were teen drivers 15 to 17 years old, 144 were their passengers, 105 were people in other vehicles and 24 were pedestrians.
Nationally, the study showed that teen drivers themselves made up just over a third of the fatalities in crashes they caused.
“It’s not just the kids that we need to be worried about,” said Lt. John Eichkorn of the Kansas Highway Patrol.
The most recent effort to change teen driving laws came in 2002, when a proposal that would have limited the number of passengers teens could have in their cars failed.
At East High School in Wichita, senior Melanie Lawis, 17, said she would support raising the age for full driving privileges from 16 to 17.
“At 16, no one takes it seriously. So many people get new cars and get into accidents,” Lawis said.
Others said younger students need transportation to school and work.
“Some of our parents work late in the evenings, so if we have to get to work or home we don’t always have a way to do that,” said Devontrez Collier, 15. “My mom goes to work at 1 in the afternoon and doesn’t get off until 9 or 10.”
Under Kansas law, drivers can obtain a farm permit at 14 that allows them to drive on public roads. A non-farm learner’s permit can be obtained at age 15.
According to AAA, Kansas is one of six states that does not restrict nighttime driving or the number of passengers for drivers with learner’s permits. The last significant change in the state’s teen driver laws passed in 1999, requiring parents to accompany teen drivers for at least 50 hours — 10 of those at night — before the teen can obtain a full-privilege license.
Under AAA’s model legislation for graduated driver’s licenses, a learner’s permit could not be obtained until age 16. During the permit period, someone at least age 21 must supervise novice drivers.
After completing six months of accident-free driving, the teen could move to the intermediate stage. That would allow unsupervised driving, but no teen passengers would be allowed and the hours from midnight to 5 a.m. would be off-limits.
“Kids will actually encourage unsafe driving behavior in their peers, and that’s when we get some of the tragedies,” Eichkorn said.
Stage three would be an unrestricted license upon reaching age 18.
While Donovan said it is unlikely that more restrictions will be placed on driver’s licenses, he does hope to pass the booster seat and teen seat belt provisions, which cleared the Senate but failed in the House last year.
“This costs us nothing and it saves lives,” he said.
Contributing: Patrice Hutton of The Eagle
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.
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