Parents, is your work as an unpaid driving instructor done when your teenager gets a license? If you think so, here are some statistics that Pam Fischer, who oversees the New Jersey Teen Safe Driving Coalition, says you should know:
- For teenage drivers, a single passenger raises the risk of a crash by 50 percent and doubles the risk of the driver dying in a crash; three passengers increase the risk of a crash by 200 percent.
- Teenagers whose parents set rules and monitor their independent driving are half as likely to get into a crash as teenagers with no parental supervision; and they’re 71 percent less likely to drive while intoxicated and 50 percent more likely to use their seat belts.
Ms. Fischer’s safe driving coalition lobbied for a bill that was passed by the New Jersey Legislature in late December 2011 that would have required parents to attend a driving safety class before their child could be eligible for a license. (The bill was vetoed by Gov. Chris Christie, along with almost 50 other bills in what amounted to a collective rebuke of legislators for procrastinating, but its sponsors plan to reintroduce it this year.)
The bill, which also lengthened the permit period and increased the required hours of practice, was an attempt to have the law catch up with the reality that driver’s education depends on parents more than ever, but without any mechanism for getting them engaged, Ms. Fischer said. The proposed change comes in the form of graduated drivers licensing, or G.D.L., under which new drivers face periods with curfews, passenger limits or other restrictions. States that have adopted these requirements have seen their crash rates for teenagers drop by 10 to 30 percent, according to Russ Rader of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
But while G.D.L. laws carry penalties for violating the restrictions, their effectiveness does not come primarily from the threat of arrest, Mr. Rader said. “Parental involvement is crucial to making graduated licensing systems work,’’ he said, “because parents are the first line enforcers of the law.”
To Ms. Fischer, what the graduated licensing does is “establish some minimum standards to help you really help your teens’’ as they transition from supervised to independent driving. “It gives parents the hammer,’’ she said, “because when a teen challenges a restriction, parents can say they have that law backing them up.’’
But parents can’t use that hammer if they don’t understand it. Connecticut adopted a parent safety class requirement in 2008. The law is still producing some grousing from “parents who see it as one more hoop to jump through,’’ said Bill Seymour, the director of communications for the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. But, he said, “the numbers are clear — deaths are dramatically down, accidents with injuries are dramatically down.”
State figures show that crashes in Connecticut in which 16- or 17-year-old drivers were considered a contributing factor fell by 28 percent in the two years after the rules went into effect.
A Department of Motor Vehicles report in 2011 showed that the police have become more aggressive about making arrests for violations of curfew or passenger limit laws, with convictions of teenagers rising for those offenses — but falling sharply for speeding, not using seat belts, distracted driving and driving under the influence. And the percentage of 16- and 17-year-olds with licenses has fallen, although Mr. Seymour said that the economy has likely played a role, as well as the new laws.
Ms. Fischer has another response to parents who are reluctant to part with yet another 90 minutes of their time. “My son plays hockey,’’ she said. “There’s a mandatory parent meeting before the start of the season, and he can’t play if I don’t go.”
“What’s a higher priority?’’ she asked. “He can get hurt playing hockey, but has a far higher risk of dying in a car crash.’’